


Two Disasters

by spice_coffee



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Continuity What Continuity, Disposable Russian Goons, F/M, Here There Be Plot Holes, In Which Clint Barton's Ass Has Its Own Facebook Fan Page, Multiple Narrators, My Canon Is Flexible, POV First Person, fraction!hawkeye
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-07-04 02:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 89,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15831765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spice_coffee/pseuds/spice_coffee
Summary: As a new member of SHIELD's Post-Event Cleanup division in New York City, Agent Eowyn Foley has been warned that she will face more than her fair share of unusual assignments. Nothing can prepare her, however, for the chain of events which unfold when the Arrowed Avenger lands on her car. Aw, windshield, no...





	1. "Are You Futzing Crazy?" (Eo)

**Author's Note:**

> From the WIP pile. This one is unfinished, but maybe posting it here will give my plot bunnies (or, as they've been referred to elsewhere, brain chickens) the impetus to get the rest done. The manuscript currently is over 200 pages long, so there'll be a lot of material to work through. This story is set in Fraction's Hawkeye comics continuity with events from the MCU thrown in for funsies. I haven't read every single related comic, so there will be continuity gaps and plot holes. As with my other work, I have multiple narrators. I'll note who the narrator is with each chapter to cut down on confusion. There's also swearing in languages other than English. Most of them are simple enough that you can Google it, but if you have questions, ask. Profanity can be fun!

“Well, if you think about it, being a superhero really doesn't even pay that much. You get fame, but that doesn't pay the bills.” The light turned green and I moved forward again. “Who's the richest of them? Tony Stark, and his money came from military subcontracting. Cap's got some endorsement deals, sure, but the rest of them? Most people don't even know who Hawkeye is.”

My friend laughed. _“Depends on which one you're talking about. Kate Bishop at least seems to know what she's doing.”_

I snorted. “True, but she doesn't have relatively cheap real estate for rent. I'll take what I can get...”

A sympathetic noise, then, _“I guess you're right. Just make sure that you get good insurance, okay? You've seen how much trouble those kinds seem to attract.”_

My GPS interrupted to tell me that my destination was on the right. I started looking for street parking and was lucky to find a spot just around the corner from the building's front entrance. Not an ideal location, but at least I wouldn't have far to walk. “Okay, I'm gonna have to let you go now. I'll let you know how it goes - ”

A commotion followed by a loud crash from just above me caused me to look up in alarm. A body hurtled through the glass of the patio door on one of the apartment balconies, lost some momentum when it hit the balcony railing, then plummeted down towards the street... I realized just a moment before impact that this unlucky person, whoever they were, was going to hit my car. And they did, ass-first, landing with enough force to break the windshield. I barely had time to throw my arm up to cover my face as the glass exploded inward, covering console and dash and seats with crystalline sparkles.

_“Eo, what was that?”_

I was too startled to answer my friend immediately. “There's... There's a man on my car. Someone threw him and he fell and... Shit.” Loud shouting and footsteps could be heard nearby. “Sorry, gotta go! I'll call you later!” I punched the button on my earpiece that would end the call, then glanced back over my shoulder to see what was causing the ruckus. One... two... three goons in tracksuits, all armed to some degree, and all pissed off. “What the hell,” I muttered. “This counts as self-defense, right?”

Common wisdom says that you should never bring a knife to a gunfight. Well, I didn't even have a knife. All I had were my brains, a freshly-dented car, and one of those four D-cell Maglite flashlights that could double as a billy club if needed. I was screwed.

Well, I'm not telling the entire truth. I also had the kind of foolhardiness that only a long-term military career can instill in you, the kind that sees a threat and doesn't say 'run' but instead says 'fight dirty or die.' And even though my day was turning out to not be the greatest, I wasn't about to give up. Not yet.

I reached under my seat and took out the flashlight, then squeezed my eyes shut and breathed a quick prayer that this wouldn't go south. A glance in the side mirror showed one of the goons to be approaching the driver's side of the car cautiously, the other two hanging back on the sidewalk in case he needed reinforcements. I looked back to the hood of the car to find myself the subject of an expression that could only best be described as pain-induced confusion mixed with wide-eyed dread. But whoever the man was, at least he had the sense to scoot off of my car and take cover before the goons could see him.

A moment later I heard a tapping on my window. I rolled it down and fixed the goon with my most winning smile. “I'm sorry, is something the matter?”

“I think you in the wrong part of town, bro.”

“I'm sorry?” The accent confirmed what the tracksuits had first suggested – Slavic mafia of some kind, probably Russian.

“I say, you shouldn't be here, bro.”

“ _Blyad_   _,”_ I muttered under my breath. Just what I needed – first a medical discharge, then a nasty breakup, then being forced to move because of the new job, then a broken windshield, and then the local mob getting into my business... The curse caught the goon off-guard, though, giving me enough time to swing the flashlight up and flick the beam on so that it shone right in his eyes. He let out a curse of his own, stronger than the one I'd offered, and stumbled a few steps. I took advantage of his disorientation, leaned out of the window, grabbed him by the collar of that tracksuit, and slammed his forehead as hard against the doorframe as I could manage. My efforts were rewarded with a meaty thud and a groan. I released the goon, now unconscious, and let him fall back onto the pavement. Knowing that I only had a few seconds before his friends realized that something had gone wrong, I quickly got out of the car and ducked down next to my would-be assailant so that I could retrieve his pistol.

“Are you futzing crazy?”

I looked over and saw that the cause of my broken windshield had not fled the scene as common sense would have dictated. “Same goes for you. Why are you still here?”

“They're after me, not you. This isn't your fight.”

“Let me help, then.”

This got a frustrated noise, then, “They'll kill you. You've only made them mad - ”

“Look, buddy,” I hissed, “you're in no condition. Just stay down and let me handle this.”

Ignoring any further protests, I stood up slowly and peered over the hood of the car. Though I doubted the goons were carrying anything heavier in caliber than the pistol that I'd appropriated, I knew that the engine block would give me the best cover. I swallowed down the panic that rose like bile in my throat, took a few deep breaths to still the shaking in my hands, then stood fully. _“Oi, durak, smotri!”_  

The taunt, though simple, did its job. The remaining goons turned their attention back to me instead of their intended prey. _Aim for center mass. Inhale, exhale, pull the trigger -_

Whoever had sent these goons was prepared. It took two shots each for them to fall, and the lack of blood from the shots showed that they were wearing at least some kind of body armor. I wasted no time once they were on the pavement, though. Whoever these thugs were, they'd be useful for questioning – so they joined their buddy in la-la-land. I went back to my car for a moment to grab some paracord from the survival bag that I kept packed in the trunk and saw that the stranger had found my phone and was using it to make a few calls. Something in the tone of his voice said that he'd had these kinds of conversations many times before and I didn't know whether to be reassured or unnerved.

Once the work of disarming and restraining my opponents was complete, I let myself sag down onto the curb with a tired sigh. My entire body felt like lead, and a stinging pain in my upper left arm showed that I'd been grazed by a stray shot from the mysterious tracksuits.

“Ow. Ow-ow-ow-ow.” A symphony of pained muttering as the man now plopped down next to me, my phone in one hand and the first aid kit from my car in the other. “So, uh, I'm sorry about your windshield. I'll help pay to replace it, since it was my ass that broke it.”

“That can come later,” I said. Mumbling a curse at the ruin of one of my favorite flannels, I peeled the bloodied sleeve off so that the wound could be cleaned and covered. “You okay?”

A tired grin. “I'm gonna be sore in the morning, but I can walk and talk, so I guess I'm good. Wish I could say that visits from these guys weren't a normal thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “I should have known to put a tracksuit mafia clause in my renter's insurance, then.” The deftness with which the bandage and tape were applied and tied off belied a familiarity with these processes – something which I again didn't know whether or not I should find comforting.

My comment was rewarded with that same wide-eyed stare of earlier. “You're the new tenant?” I nodded, hesitantly. “I'm, uh... I'm your landlord. We've talked on the phone, so... we can do the walkthrough and give you your keys as soon as all of this is cleaned up.” He cleaned his fingers off with one of the wipes from the kit and offered his hand to shake. “Clint.”

I shook his hand, taking note of the calluses and scars on the skin. “Eowyn. Nice to meet you in person.”

The moment was interrupted by one of the thugs returning to consciousness with a moan. He glared at me, coughed, growled, _“Suka...”_  

I kicked him hard in the side. _“Tikho.”_  The tracksuit took the hint and shut up.

 --

Broken glass crunched under my feet as I stood by the wreckage of the sliding door that led out onto the small balcony attached to my apartment. I had a great view of the street below and the building across the way, along with the faintest sliver of skyline. The balcony was just big enough for a pair of chairs and not much else, and the rest of the apartment was proportionately cozy. It was definitely a step down from my last residence, but it was good enough...

“Don't worry about the door, either. I'll get someone to fix that first thing tomorrow. Other than that, how do you like it?”

“It's fine.” I tried to smile reassuringly but, based on the skeptically lifted eyebrow that I got in response, I wasn't doing so well. “So I guess I'd better find someplace else to stay for the night, then.”

“I can make some calls about that, too. In the meantime, why don't you head up to the roof?” It was my turn to look skeptical. “It's sort of a nightly tradition around here. All of the residents gather up if the weather's good. Someone brings beer, someone else grills, we trade stories – it's a good time. Good way to meet the rest of the crew here, too.”

I'd been given a chance at a promotion in my new job, but one of the conditions for that promotion had been that I relocate. So I'd left the last of my friends down south in DC and, much as I cringed to admit it, I knew just about nobody outside of work here in New York. And considering how this day had gone, the prospect of an informal gathering with some new and hopefully friendly faces sounded better and better the more I thought about it. “Sounds great. Thanks for the tip.”

“I'll be along in a little bit. Tell Tito to save a few hot dogs for me, would you?”

“Sure.” _Tito. Right. You act like I'll know who that is..._ Still, I couldn't help but smile to myself as I made my way to the upper floor of the building. This wasn't the greatest location, but if things went well, I could see myself staying here for a while.

The door to the roof had been propped open with a rock. I could already smell grill smoke and hear the chatter of about a dozen different voices undercut by the low drone of a postseason baseball game on the radio. From the sounds of it, my erstwhile hometown's team was on the losing end of a fight against St. Louis. I'd had plans to go to that game, but like so many other things, those plans had changed. I knew who had probably wound up with my ticket, too, and thinking about it made my stomach curdle. Pushing those thoughts out of my mind, I nudged the door open and forced myself to smile as I stepped out onto the rooftop. “Hey, I'm looking for Tito.”

The residents of the building had made the rooftop into an unofficial community gathering place of sorts. Along with the grill which was the source of the smoke that I’d smelled earlier, I saw two ice coolers and a folding table - the latter of which served as a staging area for plates and condiments and other food items to supplement whatever was being barbecued. The residents themselves were an eclectic mix and had seated themselves wherever there was room.

“Futzing Peavy! Single, three walks, and a double? Why don't you just give 'em your bank account number while you're at it.” This outburst came from a cluster of men standing around the grill. Realizing that he'd been summoned, the one with the grievance turned around. “Nobody's said that in a while, at least nobody who's up to any good.”

“You're Tito, then? Clint asked me to tell you to save a few hot dogs for him.”

A short bark of a laugh. “If he wants some food, he's gonna have to get his butt up here himself. I'm guessing you're the new girl in E?” I nodded. “Good job earlier. You take mustard on your dog? Ketchup?”

 


	2. "Threat of imminent death does that." (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint uses his connections to fix the damage to his new tenant's gorgeous muscle car. Tony has his suspicions that this newcomer has more going on than she's saying.

“ _Go for Stark. More wiring problems?”_

I snorted. “Not this time. I was wondering if you knew anyone who could fix a vintage car for me.”

“ _Vintage? What're we looking at?”_

“Mid-seventies Cobra hatchback. Windshield's busted, hood's dented. Cars are one of your things. You know anyone?”

“ _Sure. I'll send a guy over.”_

It took me a second or two to realize what he had in mind. “Wait, wait, Tony, no. You've got bigger things to do.”

“ _Always do. Not sure if you realized this, though, but the great thing about being me is that I can decide what can and can't wait. A Cobra sounds like a great mental palate-cleanser.”_

I sighed. “Fine. How much is this gonna run me?”

“ _Depends. Whose car is it, and what happened?”_

“New tenant. And I, uh, kind of... fell on it.”

A long-ish pause. _“Say what now?”_

“Fell off of a balcony. Put my ass through the windshield.”

I could almost see Tony rubbing the bridge of his nose and pretending like he hadn't just heard that. _“Eeyup, that kind of sounds like something you'd do. Tell you what. I'm feeling generous - ”_

“Meaning that you have something you're putting off.”

“ _Eh, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. But as I was about to say, this one's on me. I get my hands on a beautiful piece of machinery, you get some brownie points with your tenant, your tenant gets some car repairs from a certified genius... everyone wins. I'll send a guy out tonight. I'm thinking by nine – that work for you?”_

“Great, thanks.”

“ _I'll call you when it's done.”_

That was the second phone call I'd had to make. The first had been to a home glass repair shop that I'd made more calls to than I cared to think about, and since I was one of their more frequent clients, they agreed to have someone out first thing in the morning. That left one last thing, and that was a matter of finding my tenant a place to stay until the fixes could get taken care of.

I thought for a moment, then dialed the first number that I could think of. “Yeah, Kate, it's me.”

“ _What's up?”_

“Nothing critical. Hey, mind if I put someone up on your couch for tonight? I know you’re out, but I could use the space.”

“ _Someone? You've got a couch, too, and you've got a floor. What gives?”_

“She's a new tenant and I want to give her some privacy while I get some last-minute repairs done on her place.” I ignored the knowing ohhh sound from Kate, added, “Got visited by some tracksuits earlier today. They wrecked a few things and then would have killed me if she hadn't shown up. Well, technically she was already there. Long story.”

“ _As long as you can vouch for her, go for it. You owe me a story once I get back.”_

_\--_

“So I heard the crash, looked out the window, and there they were. She plays cute, blinds one of the guys with a flashlight, then brains him on the car chassis and grabs his gun. Four shots and the 'suits are down. She knocks 'em out cold and ties 'em up, giving Clint enough time to call the police. Now how's that for badass? Get her another beer, she deserves it.”

I wasn't surprised to see that the newest resident of my building had been fully accepted by the other tenants. Still, I stood back and listened to the easy back-and-forth. I didn't want to interrupt just then...

“Your name's Eowyn?” A nod. “Like, from Middle-Earth?” Another nod, and a grin over the top of her beer. “Did your parents have a thing for those books or what?”

“My mom did. Her car – which is mine now – is Frodo, and she named our childhood cat Smeagol. Accurate, though. Hateful little bastard who hissed at everything.”

“I bet you caught so much shit over that when you were in school.”

She shrugged. “Not so bad as my brother, though.”

A disbelieving laugh. “Who was he named after, Aragorn?”

“Nah. His name is Richard.” Eowyn stopped to take another pull on her drink. “Lots of middle-schoolers don't read Tolkien, but you just try to keep eighth-grade boys away from a dick joke.”

Even I had to laugh at that. Tito heard me and looked up. “Hey, Clint, is it true that you just lay there on the asphalt and stared at her like she was Jesus while she saved your hide?”

I waved off the insult on my way to the beer cooler. “So I admire a woman who can kick ass – what's the big deal? She told me to stay down and let her work, so I did. Turned out all right. Did you save some hot dogs for me?”

“Smooth,” Tito snorted. “Yeah, I did. They're cold now, though.”

“Whatever. I had to make some phone calls.” I tossed the remaining two hot dogs into buns and added some basic condiments. “I'm good at phone calls. After all, I might not have powers, but I do have connections. And those connections are helping you,” I gestured at Eowyn with the remains of one hot dog, “to get your car repaired and your door replaced, as well as giving you a place to crash for the night. Let me know when you're ready to go and I'll get you the address.”

 --

“I don't mean to be a pest, Clint, but how long are these repairs going to take? I've got stuff to do in DC next week and I was kind of hoping to have my car back by then.” Eowyn put the last quarter in the washing machine and pressed the start button, then glared at it when nothing happened. She then gave it a hard kick, the same kind that I'd seen her give the tracksuit, and I winced in sympathy. The machine started with a protesting groan and I made a mental note to have it looked at... soon-ish. “I mean, I'm no expert, but two weeks seems kind of long to bang out some dents and replace a windshield.”

“I was kinda wondering the same thing. I'll give my friend a call and ask him what's taking so long.” I knew for a fact that Tony wouldn't need that amount of time to fix the damage that I'd caused, so that meant one of a few things - one, that he'd gotten bored and put this project off like so many others; two, that something more important had come up; or three, he was tinkering with it. All were equally likely, but of the three the last was what frightened me the most. “So, what takes you to DC?”

Eowyn had hopped up on top of the washing machine and made herself comfortable with a book. “Picking up the last of my stuff from... storage. That and getting my cat. Any longer and my friend's going to keep him.” She turned the page. “I've also got a meeting for work. Don't know why they can't just do a teleconference or something like that. We have the technology.”

I'm not what you'd call the most sensitive, but even I could tell that there was more to this and that she didn't want to talk about it. So I didn't pry. “I'm gonna go find out what's going on with your car. Enjoy your reading.”

She glanced up for a few seconds and gave me a small smile before going back to her book. “Thanks, Clint.”

 --

“How many times have I told you not to rush genius?” Tony wiped his hands off on a grease rag, which he then tucked into his back pocket. “I could have done so much more if you'd given me another week. Or two weeks. Three more would've been ideal, but somebody got impatient.”

“Not everybody has the luxury of multiple vehicles,” Eowyn muttered, but not quietly enough. Tony shot me a disgusted look which I ignored. “What all did you do to it, make it fly?”

 _Dangerous question,_ I thought with a silent groan.

“Well, no,” Tony replied, all seriousness. “Do you want it to? I could make that happen.”

“No,” was the quick response. “Just give me a walkthrough.”

“I started out with the basic repairs – dents and dings and windshield replacement. But then I thought, why stop there? Your neighborhood's a little bit rough so, because I'm such a great guy, I gave you a state-of-the-art Stark custom alarm system. Basic biometric palm lock with the added requirement of a pulse reading to go along with the fingerprints, just so nobody can do the old scotch tape trick or cut your hand off and use it that way. If the system is activated and somebody who isn't you tries to open the door, they'll be nailed with fifty thousand volts. Gets the point across a lot quicker than a siren, I think. Now, what if someone tries to break the window? Good question. You see, I took the liberty of installing a simple identity recognition system...”

I'll admit that I kinda drifted off at that point. Not like I'm not impressed by what Tony can do. I'm just about as impressed as anyone else is. But I'd just asked for some simple repairs, not for him to futz around and install untested upgrades on a civilian vehicle. Now you know why the third possible reason for the delays – tinkering – had gotten me uneasy. I also know how cagey Tony is about letting his tech get out into the wild without being checked over first, so I was just as confused as I was nervous. Did he know something that I didn't?

“...and heated seats. Does all of that sound good to you?”

I snapped back to here and now to see Eowyn running her fingers along the smooth curve of the hood. She was frowning, though, and it made me wonder if I'd missed something bad. “I... I guess. It's just that even though I know this is my car... it just doesn't feel like it.”

“I can assure you that it's still your car. And I really don't see the issue - all of the changes that I made are practical, whereas you just added an extra 'O' on the front grill and rearranged a few of the letters so that it spells out 'Frodo.' They were crooked, by the way. I fixed that too.”

You know how the picture sometimes hangs up a little when you change channels? Just like a little glitch before it turns into something nice to look at? Translated into human, it's the look of someone who knows that they're hearing a load of crap but knows that it's pointless to argue and they let it slip that they're pissed off for just a second before putting a smile on. In hindsight, I know that expression pretty well. I call it the 'Clint, you're full of it' expression. To see it aimed at someone else was actually kinda refreshing. Sure enough, the signal blipped – and then came the fakest of fake smiles, followed by a too-calm, too-nice, “Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Stark.”

“No problem. Call me Tony.”

“Of course, Tony.” The smile stretched out just a little bit wider. “You know what, I think all of this morning's coffee is finally starting to kick in. Do you have a bathroom that I could use for a minute?”

“Sure. Back out the door, down the hall to the left, last door on the right.” No sooner was she gone than Tony turned on me. “Okay. I thought I did something good, but apparently not. What gives?”

“That was her mom's car. My guess is that she would have liked it just as much if you'd left it alone.”

“You mean, other than the divot in the hood and the broken windshield? But the Cobra is a work of art to begin with. I just made it better. And before you scold me – I see that look on your face – I didn't give her anything that she can't handle. I did my homework.” Tony looked back over his shoulder at the windshield of the car. “And speaking of homework, something doesn't add up. You were tossed through a plate glass door, hit a balcony railing on the way out, and then fell two stories onto a parked car with enough force that your ass broke the front glass. The rest of you hit steel which isn't too forgiving either. Sound right so far?”

I nodded. “What I can remember, yeah. It was kind of a blur.”

“Understandable. Threat of imminent death does that to you. My point is, though, how were you able to walk away from that? I'm not a doctor, but I know what the human body can and can't handle.”

It had been a bad day to begin with and I'd had a lot on my plate to take care of afterward, so I hadn't really thought too much about what had led up to landing on that hood or the relative impossibility of what had happened afterward. “So what do you think happened?”

“I don't know, but I'm going to figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Frodo the 'Stang is based on a car that my mother owned when she was in high school. Smeagol the cat is entirely fictional, however, as is Richard the Dick.


	3. The Wrong Idea (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Foley catches up with an old friend at SHIELD's Washington, DC location. Living in the same building as an Avenger isn't as glamorous as it seems.

There is no polite way to describe how little I was looking forward to going back south.

First, there was the work aspect. As the newest member of the Logistics branch that handled mission planning, analysis, and post-event cleanup at SHIELD Central in New York, I'd been elected to personally represent my office at the annual mission overview meeting at the Triskelion – mainly to sit in the back and take notes and try not to draw attention to myself. My higher-ups had deemed it to be a good “learning experience” for me with “potential for networking and possible advancement.” In bureaucratese, that simply means that they didn't want to attend another meeting and were sending the newbie instead because she wouldn't know what she was getting into.

And then... second... the personal aspect.

Valerie is a friend of mine who I met at the Academy, and even though she was more on the science side of the house, we'd bonded over a mutual love of bad sci-fi, video games, and certain comic books. We'd both taken postings at the Triskelion after graduation and had been roommates in a cute little apartment in Georgetown, and she'd been my lifeline when other parts of my private life had gone sour. Then I got a chance at a promotion, but that had required me to go north to New York – so Valerie had agreed to watch over my cat, Bacchus, while I got myself settled. She'd extended an offer to let me bunk with her during my trip and had even promised a tour of our old stomping grounds so that I could relive the good memories of our earlier adventures. That I looked forward to.

What I didn't look forward to was the prospect of running into Bron – my ex, the preppy lobbyist asshole who didn't want anything to do with me once he found out that I'd been hired on by SHIELD. He had ambitions towards politics, or so he said, and he didn't think it would look good on his resume to be around anyone affiliated with an organization whose workings and objectives were so secretive.

Being dumped by a professional liar because he thought I was a spy and thus also a liar? No, the irony isn't lost on me.

In addition to the revamped security system and basic repairs, my car had also gotten an interior update with all-new leather upholstery, a restored console, subtle ergonomic tweaks to the seats, and cupholders with a heating option to keep my drink warm if wanted. The GPS was brand new, as was the stereo – but it had all been crafted so as not to detract from the vintage look of the car. I marveled as I sipped my still-hot coffee that all of this work had been completed in just two weeks, and even though I was still resentful over such drastic alterations being made without my prior consent, part of me wondered what could have been done if I hadn't needed my car back so soon. I also wondered just what quirk of personality had motivated one of the modern world's foremost inventors to pimp my ride, as it were. He didn't know me from Adam.

The trip took about five hours, including traffic, but I got in town early enough in the afternoon that I figured there'd be no harm in surprising Valerie at work. And since my branch often called on Research and Development for the newest event management technology, I could pass this off as an official consult and not me distracting my best friend from Important Science. I dropped my car off at her place, made a quick detour for something that I knew would cheer her up, and then made my way to the subway.

“Agent Foley! Welcome back to our fair island. Are you here for business or pleasure?”

“I think we both know the answer to that question.” I put the paper cartons that I'd acquired on the way over onto the security desk and opened them. “Peanut butter fudge cupcake for you, Rob, and vegan carrot cake for Gail whenever she gets back from break.”

The guard took one of the cartons, closed it, and stashed it out of view. “Thanks for remembering. So I'm guessing that you're here for the annual overview meeting, then.” I nodded. “Lucky you. I'm so glad that kind of stuff is above my paygrade.” He closed the other carton and passed it back to me. “Tell Valerie that I said hello.”

“Will do.”

It was easy to fall back into the near-subconscious navigation patterns that I'd picked up in the two years that I'd worked here. I noticed a lot of new faces, too, and that made me slightly uneasy for a reason that I couldn't quite pinpoint. I pushed that to the back of my mind for later consideration and tried to remember the more pressing matters at hand, such as finding my way through the warren of research libraries, offices, laboratories, and clean rooms that made up the majority of R&D's territory.

“I knew you were coming.” Valerie saw my quizzical look, grinned, and said, “Before you rang the buzzer, even. The high blood pressure gave it away!” She held up a small device in one gloved hand, a black box not much larger than a deck of cards with a glowing readout panel on one of the larger sides. “Portable medical scanner. Reads basic life signs from a range of... eh, about a hundred feet. Works through concrete and rebar, even. Your people might be interested – once we get all of the bugs worked out, of course.” She powered the device down and locked it away in a cabinet. “I've done all that I can on that today. Let's go back to my office so that I can pretend to look productive.”

Valerie's inquisitive mind is well-suited to her more intellectual pursuits, but it's a long-standing joke between us that she'd have a great career in interrogation if the science aspect didn't work out for her. The only things standing between me and a full questioning session were a series of phone calls regarding the success of the scanner prototype that diverted her attention – well, that and the red velvet cupcake that I'd left on her desk before going to the laboratory to say hello. But I knew that all of my diversionary tactics were only temporary measures.

Dinnertime found us in a corner table by the fireplace in one of our favorite haunts – an Irish pub located strangely enough in Chinatown – with me squeezed into the wall booth along with our coats and escape thus made difficult. “So tell me, how's New York?”

I shrugged, picked up a potato wedge from the platter in front of me, dipped it in fry sauce, and took a bite. “Not bad. I'm still the newbie at work, which means that I get all of the scut work and none of the recognition.”

“And the whole living-with-an-Avenger thing? How's that working out for you?”

I nearly choked on my food and had to take a long pull on my Guinness to compose myself. “For pete's sake, Val, keep it down! You're gonna give people the wrong idea.”

“I don't think they can hear us,” my friend replied, pointing to the speaker right above our heads that was currently blaring something by Flogging Molly. “But if it makes you feel better...”

“Thanks.” I flagged down the server and ordered another beer to replace the nearly empty glass in front of me. “And just to clarify, he lives on the top floor of the building. I'm on the second floor. And other than him putting his ass through the windshield of my car, I've had little reason to talk to him.”

“So that was him?” Valerie let out an astonished laugh. “Talk about a memorable introduction. And he must have glutes made of vibranium in order to cause that kind of damage. Please tell me that he paid to repair it.”

I was kept from answering that immediately by the fortuitous arrival of our food and my second beer. I stalled for another five minutes making sure that my shepherd's pie was up to standards before I realized that I couldn't evade the expectant stare from across the table any longer. “Er, no.”

“What? Am I gonna have to call him out for being a cheap bastard?”

“No!” I lowered my voice even further. “He might have gotten a mechanically gifted, rich, egomaniacal genius acquaintance of his to take a look at it.”

“What?” This time several nearby diners did look to see what caused such a loud exclamation. Remembering my earlier admonition, Valerie leaned across the table and hissed, “You mean to tell me that Tony futzing Stark messed with Frodo? Does it fly now?”

“No, it doesn't. It will, however, knock you on your butt if you grab the door handle and you're not me – so don't get any ideas.”

“Oh, I won't. I'll just sit here festering in envy.”

 --

“ _And last but certainly not least, here's something for our Event Management folks. We haven't forgotten about you. We've taken a look at your after-action reports and one common theme is that civilian law enforcement agencies lack the agility and the training to properly deal with powered individuals and the incidents caused by said individuals. With that in mind, we're actively investigating the feasibility of creating specialized rapid response teams with the knowledge and the authority to handle these situations effectively. We will, of course, keep you apprised...”_

I rolled my eyes as I thought back over the Logistics portion of the overview briefing. “Yeah, and if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its ass when it hopped,” I muttered. “It's gonna take a serious incident to make something like that a priority. Isn't that right, Bacchus?” A low rowl of possible agreement came from the crate in the back seat of the car where a large brown longhaired cat now huddled in an attitude of injured dignity. “I know, you hate car rides. You've been telling me that for the past four hours. We're almost there, okay?”

Two hours later I finally pulled into the parking spot waiting for me below my balcony. While it had still been relatively warm in DC, the cold bite in the air reminded me that it was now early November and that it was time to bring out the layers. I fished a hoodie out from the back seat of the car, tugged it over my head, and then began the long process of hauling the rest of my life into my apartment.

If I craned my neck hard enough, I could see a faint plume of smoke from the rooftop – which, paired with the occasional loud commentary from Tito and his cronies, told me that the nightly resident potluck was in session. After making sure that Bacchus was settled, I hefted the case of Natty Boh that I'd brought back north with me and headed for the roof.

“Milk's gone up again. At this rate, I'd be better off keeping a cow in my living room...”

“...I felt dirty rooting for the Sox, yanno? But better them than the motherfutzing Yankees...”

“Maybe a white elephant-style gift exchange. I think that'd be fun...”

I cleared my throat loudly and waited until all eyes were on me. “Fellow citizens, I have survived my journey to that wretched hive of scum and villainy that is our nation's fair capital... and I return bearing gifts!”

“That's great!” Aimee, a pink-haired bike messenger who lived on the floor above me, got up to relieve me of the case and to put its contents in the cooler. “But can you tell us who shot first?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: God, how I miss Georgetown Cupcakes. Their Earl Grey Lavender Teacake sounds strange but is simply unbelievable. The Irish pub in DC's Chinatown is an actual thing, too, and I've spent several blustery winter afternoons tucked up in the booth by the fireplace with a Guinness and a hot shepherd's pie. As a non-local transplant, I can say that Natty Boh beer was a thing, but it wasn't my favorite... Yeah, this fic is a nostalgia trip. Don't look at me like that.


	4. "The reference you're looking for is Doctor Ruth" (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint tries to impress his new tenant by asking Steve Rogers to fix a busted kitchen sink. The Star-Spangled Man with a... Pipe Wrench?

I've said before that my neighbors are jerks. Unfortunately for me, I give them a lot of material to work with. They got fresh ammunition the night that Eowyn came back from her business trip, hoisting a case of beer up in the air like she was trying out for a low-budget version of the Lion King, and Deke and a few of the other guys caught me staring. I tried to fake like I hadn't heard what they were saying, a legit excuse in my case, but they weren't buying it. Whatever. I might be one of Earth's mightiest heroes, but I'm not immune to a pretty face.

She'd asked me to get her mail for her while she was gone and I'd said sure because it seemed like the decent thing to do. Or maybe I agreed because I was looking for reasons to bump into her and to make lousy attempts at small talk. I waited until what I thought was a good time the morning after she got back and then made the trip downstairs to E, only to be greeted with the aroma of fresh-baked something and some of the most inventive cussing that I've ever heard. I knocked on the door. “Hey, is everything okay in there?”

I was answered with a Doppler effect of profanity - “shit shit shit SHIT” - followed by the distinctive thump and crash of a stumble and fall just on the other side of the door and a long, defeated sigh. Then the door opened and I was waved inside by an unexplainably damp Eowyn. She dabbed away what looked like a smudge of flour from her face and said, “Clint! Perfect timing. I was just about to call you.”

Something told me that this wasn't as promising as it sounded. “Let me guess. Something to do with the, uh...” I waved my hand lamely to encompass her soaked clothes – which I definitely wasn't looking at – and frazzled expression.

Eowyn nodded, copying my gesture. “Yeah, that. I think the sink's backed up. Can you help?”

I might have many specialized skill sets, but plumbing wasn't one of them. “I can't, but I know someone who can. Give me a little bit.”

“Sure. I'll need some time to patch up my dignity anyway.”

 --

“Now doesn't this just bring back memories. I think I passed an alley where I got beaten up as a kid about three blocks back.” Steve looked at the facade of the building, said, “This place looks like a bomb went off in it.”

“Not too far from the truth,” I replied, shrugging. “But that was a while ago. Thanks for dropping by on such short notice. I'm sure you've got better things to do.”

“What, other than helping a friend? Besides, I heard how you went about getting this place and what you were trying to do. Things didn't work out the way you planned, but at least you tried. Least I can do is lend you a hand.”

“Thanks. We can head up now; I'm pretty sure she's waiting for us.”

He was walking behind me, but I could still feel the smug surprise on Steve's face like heat off of a radiator. “She's waiting? This wouldn't happen to be the same tenant whose car Tony fixed a few weeks ago after you landed on it, would it?”

“Yeah, it's her.”

“Uh- _huh._ ”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing yet, anyway.”

We reached E a little bit after that and I knocked on the door again. This time I heard a promising “Just a minute!” Eowyn answered the door in a much more collected state than before. “Oh, good, it's you. I've mopped up the mess in the kitchen and cleaned up the mess that I could. There's coffee and muffins in the kitchen if you want them and - ” Her eyes flicked back over my shoulder and I saw her turn pale when her gaze landed on Steve. “Uh. Yeah.”

She waved us in and closed the door again. Steve offered her a courteous handshake, which she accepted with a stunned speechlessness that seemed unusual from her. “Agent Foley, is it? I've heard a little bit about you. All of it good, don't worry.” He gestured to the wall by the door where a number of impressive certificates and framed photographs hung on display. “I also see that you're a veteran. Thank you for your service.”

“T-thank you. Sir.” Eowyn shook her head quickly. “Right. I'll just be out of your way then. Coffee and muffins in the kitchen like I said, and I'll be on the balcony if you need me.” Then she was gone, stopping in the living room only long enough to pick something up off of the coffee table before making her retreat and closing the balcony door most of the way behind her.

Steve waited until she was gone, then said, “Gets 'em every time.” He then took the small toolbox that he'd brought with him into the kitchen and set to work. I tried not to laugh too hard at the sight of Steve trying to fit himself into the small space under the sink, since he was doing me a huge favor and – despite the ration of crap that he was giving me – he was genuinely trying to help me out.

I picked a mug from the small collection hung on a pegboard near the sink and helped myself like I'd been invited to do, then let Steve focus on the plumbing repair and walked back over to the wall by the door so that I could get a better look at what was hanging up there. Lots of military stuff, just like Steve had implied. But when I took a closer look, I nearly spit my coffee: two language school diplomas and, just as impressive, a certificate from one of the survival schools back on the west coast. One of the photos I guessed was a promotion, another dressed in a flight suit and grinning from ear to ear in front of an airplane with what was probably the rest of the crew. She'd also framed some of her flight patches and ribbons and similar things.

The longer I looked, the more it made sense that she'd jumped into action to cover my ass on the day that we'd met. I didn't know what all exactly she'd been through in her training or in her career, but I'd heard stories about some of it and to see that she'd made it through while keeping a level head... wow. Something didn't click, though.

“Hey, Steve? How'd you know that she's SHIELD?”

“I've asked to be told when one of their people gets assigned to this area – just so I know who I'm working with. Why, don't you?”

“No. So what does she do, then?”

“She's logistics. Officially a mission analyst, but also assigned to post-event cleanup. Building permits, inspections, stuff like that.”

I took a long pull of the coffee. Dark, but not bitter. I'd have to ask her what brand it was. “Sounds boring.”

“Someone's gotta tidy up after us. Who do you think does it, gnomes?”

“Point taken.” More coffee, a bite of the muffin – blueberry, I thought, and not half bad. “So why didn't she tell me? She knows who I am and that she can trust me.”

Steve crawled out from under the sink with the trap in his hand and began to clean it out over a bucket that Eowyn had left nearby. “Why don't you ask her? Like, maybe over lunch or something. I know of a few good places if you need ideas. This one deli makes great pastrami - ”

“I can't ask her out. I'm her landlord, that would be weird.”

“It's only weird if you make it weird. Are you gonna make it weird?”

“Wha- Not on purpose, no.” I was starting to get annoyed. “What's with all of the dating advice, Doctor Phil?”

He might have had some time to catch up after being on ice for so long, but you've got about a fifty-fifty chance that Steve won't get a reference that you throw at him – and if you get one of those, you can put the conversation off-track pretty quick. The smirk on his face told me that this wasn't my lucky day, not this time anyway. “Nice try, Clint, but I think the reference you're looking for is Doctor Ruth.” He finished cleaning out the trap and then slid back under the sink to put it back where it belonged. “Look, I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think you had a chance. I saw the way you looked at her when she answered the door. More importantly, I saw the way she looked at you. And here's the kicker – did you see the book she had under her arm?” He stopped to tighten a few fittings, then came back up to test his work. “Basic primer on American sign language. Now, maybe languages are her hobby and this is just another part of that. But that's one helluva coincidence, don't you think?”

I looked back across the apartment and through the glass door to the balcony where Eowyn sat with her feet up on the railing and the book and her phone in her lap. I could see her practicing some of the more complicated gestures, goofing up, and trying again, her focus occasionally broken by an incoming text that she stopped to answer. “Yeah.”

“Or here's another idea. Take Lucky for a walk and ask if she wants to come with – she has a cat, so odds are that she's okay with other animals. Just walk and talk. Low pressure, casual.” Steve washed the gunk off of his hands and then shut the faucet off. “My work here is done. And I'm sorry if I ruffled your feathers. Just trying to help you out a little, so take it for what it's worth.”

“Ruffle my feathers...?”

“Couldn't resist.”

I stayed inside to finish my coffee while Steve went outside to say his goodbyes, and I didn't even try to figure out what was being said on the balcony. But I did see him bend in close so that she could snap a picture on her phone, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that. “What was that about?” I asked when he came back inside.

“One of her friends wanted proof that I was actually here. I didn't see any harm in it.” Steve put his jacket back on, grabbed his toolbox, and headed for the door. “Just think about it, all right? See you around.”

I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched in the eerie silence that followed after he left. Then I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and looked up to meet a strangely human-like glare coming from a massive brown cat perched on top of one of the bookcases. “Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt her,” I told it. It narrowed its eyes. “Or I'll try not to, at least.”

“Try not to do what?” Eowyn dropped her book off on the coffee table again and went to the kitchen where I then heard her puttering around and tidying up.

“Embarrass myself in front of your cat.” I mentally kicked myself that she'd caught me but decided to roll with it. “Probably too late.”

“Back in my old apartment, he loved to sit on the windowsill and judge people as they walked by. Don't take it personally.” More silence, this time awkward. “So, do you know any good places for lunch around here?”


	5. "Inquiring Minds Want to Know" (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Foley's extracurricular activities show up on the blogosphere. And hey, someone's got to man the phones at SHIELD during the holidays...

“So, got any special plans for the holidays?”

This question came from the director of my office, who was making his morning rounds in an attempt to appear personable. I glanced up from the slide deck that I was preparing and shook my head. “Nope. You drew me for the overnight shift, remember?”

Like most bureaucratic agencies, SHIELD keeps people on over the holidays - just in case some would-be menace gets a wild hair up their ass and decides to start something. Since my office was mainly for what happens after an event, we only kept one person around to answer the phones... and that year, the unlucky soul whose name was drawn out of the hat was mine. I didn't mind so much, though, since this wouldn't be the first time that I'd missed a holiday because of work.

“Oh. Right. Well, that's just for Christmas Eve. There's still Christmas Day and New Year's.”

“You show a keen grasp of the calendar, sir. But the answer's still no.”

His social obligations for the morning partially satisfied, my boss wandered off to bother someone else. I only got about five seconds' peace, though, before the agent who shared a cubicle with me piped up. “You mean you haven't got anything planned with your boyfriend?”

“Not my boyfriend.” Agent Lowell was a known, avid reader of a blog called CapeTalk which supposedly reported the best gossip related to any known superhero. The moment she'd heard that I'd moved into Clint's building, she hadn't stopped hounding me for juicy details – and then when the rumors started of him being seen with a new mystery woman, it didn't take long for her to develop something even more annoying to pester me about.

“Your landlord, then. Semantics. The question stands, though – no plans?”

“The building's doing a white elephant gift exchange. I'm contributing a pack of Ramen, even though I won't be there in person. Clint said that he'd make sure something got set aside for me.”

I realized my mistake as soon as I said it. Lowell let out an intrigued “ooooooohhh” and spun in her chair to face me fully, her face alight with mischief. “So you two are on a first name basis, huh?”

“What the futz am I supposed to call him, his codename? So we went out for lunch. That doesn't mean anything.”

“But inquiring minds want to know!”

“Inquiring minds should get back to work on this week's activity summary so that I can add it to my slides.”

Lowell made a face at me and turned back around, presumably to work on her assignment. I heaved what I thought was a quiet sigh of relief and resumed combing through the pile of reports on my desk for anything that might be of interest for my presentation. But I was sadly mistaken, as the typing that I heard from the other side of the cubicle turned out to be Lowell pulling up blog posts on her unclassified computer terminal. “Sources say that the mystery woman first appeared sometime in late October, and she is believed to be a tenant of Barton's apartment building. In the time since, they have been spotted together on several occasions: grabbing a casual meal, picking up groceries at the corner store, going to see a movie – an early showing of The Desolation of Smaug, if information is correct – and walking his dog Lucky. Her identity is as of yet unverified, as is the exact nature of their relationship.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Care to comment, _Eowyn_?”

“The fact that I'm named after a shieldmaiden of Rohan has absolutely no correlation with Clint Barton's movie choices.”

“Your lips say one thing, but your blushing face says another. If you need some help digging, I'm sure there's a shovel somewhere in this building.”

I was effectively cornered. “Fine. We did go to see that movie, and he wouldn't shut the futz up about the goddamn archery. That scene with Legolas shooting orcs on the river? Almost every shot fired was 'wrong.' And don't get me started on the footwork. 'I’ve pulled off some crazy stunts, Eo, and even I know that you just can't do that - ' and on and on and on like that for at least an hour after the movie got out.” I stopped when I saw the expression on my cubicle-mate's face. “If any of this goes up on the Internet, you're dead meat.”

“So not only first names, but nicknames? This is just too good!”

I sighed. “What did I just say?”

“Dead meat. Copy, loud and clear.”

 --

That Christmas wasn't the first time that I'd missed a holiday because of work. It happens a lot in the military and you kind of get used to it. I left my gift exchange contribution with Aimee, shouldered my bag, and set off for the office, fully prepared for twelve hours either of nonstop chaos or of mindnumbing tedium.

I'd pulled shifts like this before doing sentry duty in the barracks. The difference there was that even though you might be bored out of your mind, there was very little that you could do to actually entertain yourself for fear that a superior might see you goofing off and bust your chops about it. I understood the reasoning for this, don't get me wrong. If something pops off on a military base, you don't want your first line of defense to be some kid dozing off to Insomniac Video Theater or trying to get air going over speed bumps in a duty vehicle.

But here... There was nobody to see me, nobody to care if I subtly moved things on the assistant branch director's desk to see if she'd notice or if I tried to build a pyramid out of office supplies or if I rearranged the office furniture into a barricade so that I could reenact a few of the musical numbers out of Les Mis. (Quick! Two truths and a lie – which one do you think it is?) I also did some sudoku, solved the most recent Times Sunday crossword, pondered ordering a pizza, decided against it, planned a dream vacation, answered three wrong numbers, watched some Simon's Cat on Youtube, drank two vacuum bottles full of strong coffee, and realized when I got up to take a bathroom break that not only had I accidentally wound up with one of Clint's shirts, I was wearing it. Not like I or anyone else in the building would have any reason to own a ratty white shirt with a faded bullseye design on it – so whose else could it be?

I then spent the next two hours trying to figure out how on earth I'd wound up with the shirt and just how distracted that I must have been in order not to notice that I'd actually put it on my body. The only possible solution that seemed feasible was that Clint had forgotten it in the dryer while doing laundry and that I somehow had used the same machine to dry my clothes and then taken it with me. As for wearing it, who knew. And then came the trickier matter – getting it back to him, without giving slip to the fact that I'd actually worn it.

That kept my mind occupied for another two hours. I still had another three hours left to go after that, though, which I spent reading the latest news from Russia (nothing new) and then, out of sheer morbid curiosity, visiting CapeTalk. And there I was. Each scenario that Lowell had described, photographed and speculated over with breathless intensity. Granted, Clint didn't merit the same sort of attention that his higher-profile colleagues did, but it was still enough to make my skin prickle.

I fortunately didn't have much time to dwell on it as it was then time to shut down my workstation and lock up the office once again. Though it had only been twelve hours, it felt like it had been twelve years. All I wanted to do was get home, make myself a cup of herbal tea, and read until I fell asleep. I'd call my family later on, call Valerie, and then enjoy the rest of the holiday week off.

Only part of that plan actually happened, though. I'd just barely set the kettle on the stove, and then I heard a muffled bark from the landing outside my front door. I had my suspicions as to the source of the barking, so I turned the stove off and put on my shoes and warmer clothes before going to see what it was.

Lucky sat expectantly outside my door, holding his leash in his mouth. I realized with a sleepy blink that the dog was also wearing a pair of fuzzy reindeer antlers, maybe an attempt on the part of his owner to convey holiday spirit. I took the loose end of the leash from the dog, locked my apartment door, and let him lead me down the stairs and outside.

A lone figure stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, looking up into the cloudy morning sky with its lightly falling flakes of snow. Hearing me approach, Clint turned around. “Good, it was you that I heard pulling up earlier. I would have looked like an idiot if it wasn't.” He handed me one of two paper cups of coffee and then, on impulse, took the red velvet Santa hat off of his head and plopped it down on mine. “Better. How was work?”

“Boring. Only three calls, and each of them a wrong number.”

“Was one of them asking for Stanley's Pizza?” I thought back over it and nodded. “That was Kate. I might have put her up to it.” He took the leash from me and looped it around his wrist, then dug down in his pocket. “Gimmie a sec. I've got something for you.” He then brought his hand back out again, fingers closed. “I tried to make sure that you got something good in the exchange.”

It was a rock. Nothing special, just a smooth chunk of what was possibly granite with a smiley face painted on it. “You know, Clint, this is not what they mean by giving a girl a rock for Christmas.”

“I was raised by carnies. What do you expect?” A shallow laugh with a hint of embarrassment. “Since it's kinda cold out here... I'd say let Lucky do his business, then get back inside where it's warm. Coffee, pizza, movies, my couch?”

I took a sip of the coffee that he'd given me. It was awful, but I'd tasted worse – and the gesture meant more than the taste. “Sounds great.”

We stayed out just long enough for Lucky to stretch his legs and investigate every fire hydrant, light post, and power pole within a three-block radius – in other words, just long enough to make me wish I'd worn better shoes and more layers. I debated bringing up what I'd seen on that stupid blog, but I didn't want to ruin whatever was going on here. _Which is what, exactly?_ I wondered, chafing my hands against the coffee cup. _Not like I'm complaining._ So I did my best to relax and enjoy the silence and pray that the dog would finally find a spot that met his mysterious criteria so that I could go inside and thaw out my toes.

That moment finally came, and none too soon. A light breeze had kicked up and I was starting to feel like a line out of one of my favorite movies - “Negative. I am a meat popsicle”  - so it was hard to stifle a cheer when Lucky finally let us go back inside. I excused myself at that point to return to my own apartment for a little while, mainly to take care of the requisite family phone calls but also to put some more comfortable clothes on and to get some snacks to go along with whatever we decided to watch. My feet were numb enough that I nearly tripped and fell over them at least twice while switching into looser-fitting lounge pants (marketed, of course, as yoga pants – but who am I kidding?) from my snow-dampened jeans.

Bacchus watched the whole debacle from his favored perch atop my tallest bookcase, whiskers bristled forward in a feline smirk. “Seriously, though, Bacchus, what am I doing?” I asked him. “This whole thing isn't... well, it's not wrong, but it feels strange. But not in a bad way.” Bacchus blinked slowly, suggesting that he was thinking about it. “Definitely a one-eighty from that yacht-shoe-wearing wingnut, that's for sure. But not in a bad way. I just wish I knew where this whole thing was going to wind up. Am I a bad person for wondering?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: How could I not include a reference to one of my favorite sci-fi movies? Fans of The Fifth Element will recognize Eo's comment about becoming a meat popsicle. Two Truths and a Lie has to be one of my most beloved/hated icebreaker exercises. Also, last but not least, Bacchus is a Maine Coon... but may also be part Flerken. The jury is out.


	6. Worst House Party Ever. (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's involvement with Agent Foley attracts the attention of the Tracksuit Mafia. Also, Die Hard is totally a Christmas movie.

“ _You seriously gave her a rock?”_

“It wasn't from me. It was from the white elephant exchange that Aimee put together. But yeah, a rock.”

Kate let out a long sigh. _“That would be sad coming from anyone else, you know that? But since it's you...”_

“Aw, shush. What are you, twelve?”

“ _Just admit it, you're jealous. I'm better at this whole thing – personal life, being an Avenger...”_

“At least Lucky came back. That counts for something, right?” Long silence on the other end. “So, did you call just to bust my chops, or is there a point? She's supposed to come up any minute now.”

“ _Yeah, there's a point. In the spirit of the holidays, Clint, my gift to you is to help you not screw this one up.”_

I raised my eyebrows. “Uh-huh. Considering my luck, you'd be better off just sending me a check.”

Kate snorted. _“You wish. But based on what I've seen, you've been slightly less of a radioactive human disaster area over the past few months. Not sure if that's from her, but if it is, she should stick around.”_

“Gee, thanks.”

She ignored my sarcasm and pressed on. _“Rocks only count as gifts if you're a bird – which, despite the name, you aren't. What kind of stuff does she like?”_

“Uh.” I racked my brain. “Cats, coffee, books. Hockey, I think.”

“ _And you said that she moved up here from DC?”_

“What's that got to do with anything – and what're you doing on your computer?”

“ _I'm saving your hide, that's what. Let me work.”_ More typing, then, _“Keep your schedule clear on the 26 th. Her team's playing the Islanders at the Coliseum, and I just got you two tickets at center ice. They'll be at will call.”_

“Katie, I - ”

“ _Don't futz this one up, okay? And if this works, I get to meet her.”_

“But - ”

“ _But me no buts. Merry Christmas.”_

The call with Kate was what passed for family conversation, and after that I was left alone to think about what I was getting myself into. The last time I'd even gotten close to a woman, it had ended with a seriously wrecked car, my building under siege, and me losing my hearing... again. So can you blame me for being gun-shy? And based on what little I'd heard about Eowyn's ex, he seemed like he'd been a real dickwad at the end. I couldn't blame her for being nervous.

“Only count as gifts if you're a bird?” Since Eowyn still hadn't shown, I took the time to make one last pass around my apartment to make sure that it wasn't too much of a mess. I had a feeling that she wouldn't care too much if it was, but something something appearances... whatever. “Shows how much you know, kid. I thought it was a nice rock. Kinda why I fought for her to get it, even if I wound up getting stuck with a bag of mismatched socks.”

The apartment was clean enough, so I started up a fresh pot of coffee and called up the usual place to have a pizza delivered. I passed the time after that wearing a hole in my carpet pacing back and forth from the door to the window and back again. This only stopped when the pizza got there, and it started back up again once the delivery guy left with a generous tip in his pocket for working on a holiday. My nerves ratcheted tighter as the wait got longer – I mean, what if I'd screwed this up already? Maybe Kate was right and the rock had been a really bad move -

Then there was a loud knock on the door. “Clint, you there?”

I didn't run to answer, but I didn't take my time either. And when I opened my door, there she was – a reusable shopping tote in one hand, a six-pack in the other, my Santa hat on her head... and wearing one of my shirts. Not like it looked bad on her or that I didn't want her wearing it. It looked great. Beyond great. But how the hell had she gotten it in the first place? I took the tote from her and stepped to the side to let her in. “Man, I was kinda worried that you'd gotten cold feet.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Valerie was giving me the third degree about... everything. Like she does. Curiosity's good for a researcher, but she needs to tone it down sometimes.” Eowyn poured herself a cup from the pot, sipped at it, and winced. “Jesus, Clint. I really need to teach you how to make better coffee.” There was something else going on with her, something other than being tired from a long overnight shift, and it didn't take genius to guess that she'd heard something unpleasant on the phone. “I mean, come on. The Navy buys the cheap bulk grounds, too, and their stuff doesn't bite back like yours does.”

“Then you'll have to show me later.” I fished around for a smooth way to change the subject and lighten the mood, but as usual came up with nothing. “So, uh, sorry that I didn't tell you this earlier, but I really don't do too well with Christmas specials. If you want to watch something else...”

This got a genuine smile out of her, a sneaky grin that I liked more than I wanted to admit. “Check in the bag.”

I didn't know whether to be worried or hopeful about this, so I just did as she asked. “Popcorn... cool. Cookies... homemade?” A nod. “Also cool. And... _Die Hard_? All of them?”

“I figured that at least the first two are seasonally appropriate.”

“Bruce Willis destroying things – that's always in season. Now come on. Pizza's getting cold.”

I don't remember a lot about that afternoon, but I do remember that it was one of the better holidays that I'd had in a while – even though Eowyn spent most of the first movie trying not to fall asleep and finally gave up halfway through the second. It was a pretty cozy setup, too. We'd started sitting at that awkward distance apart on the couch, that distance that says that you're really not trying to get up in the other person's space but that you'd be totally okay if they got into yours. I don't know when she scooted closer so that she could drape her legs over my lap, but I was definitely okay with that. But not even the power of three cups of my strongest coffee could fight the effects of a twelve-hour overnight shift, and it wasn't long before she was conked out cold and snoring like a buzzsaw. It was kinda scary but also weirdly cute.

I tossed a blanket over her so that she'd stay warm and went back to watching the movie. It was hard not to look back over at her every now and then, though, and it was during one of these sneak peeks that it hit me: she trusted me. I mean, sleeping _with_ someone could be called a trust exercise – but sleeping next to them, letting your defenses down completely, that's putting complete faith in them that they won't hurt you. _That's why I didn't tell you who I worked for at first,_ she'd told me. _I didn't trust you not to freak out about it. The last guy, he did. That didn't end well. I'm sorry, it was shitty of me to assume..._

She curled up tighter in the blanket, muttered something, then went right back to snoring. And all that I could think in that moment was, whoever that guy was – what a dumbass.

I started getting a leg cramp in the middle of _Die Hard with a Vengeance_ and it looked like Lucky was getting pretty restless too. So I got up slowly and carefully and left a note where Eowyn could find it if she woke up while I was out.

Now, Lucky is a good dog, but sometimes his timing absolutely sucks. He took even longer this time to find the right place for a pit stop than he had that morning and after that was still so futzing squirrelly that it took a good forty-five minutes or so for him to finally get tired enough to want to head back home. It was when I saw the white panel van parked illegally in front of a hydrant across the street from the building that my stomach lurched. Maybe not the tracksuit army that we'd fought off the year before, but still enough to do some damage... It wasn't long before my brain connected the dots to figure out just what – or, more to the point, who – they were here for. They'd already tried to come after me and she'd gotten in their way. _Shit._ No time to get my gear because she didn't have time, not if there was a van full of them.

The door to her apartment was closed but not locked. Rookie mistake on their part, and it saved me the hassle of having to kick it in. I stopped to listen before going in, telling the panic in my head that told me that it was too quiet and I was too late to just shut up and let me do my thing. _But if I stand around here and think too much, then it'll really be too late. Stop thinking and just go already!_

I opened the front door and walked in just as the bathroom door opened and Eowyn down the stairs in a bathrobe, drying her hair off with a towel. Five tracksuits waited in the living room. She looked from them, then to me, then back to them. They stared at me, then at each other. It was like the worst house party ever, everyone standing around awkwardly and not knowing what to do.

And then that big damn cat launched himself off of the bookcase at the nearest tracksuit's head, making a noise that was half-growl, half-shriek. Lucky strained at his leash and I just barely unclipped it before he lunged into the fray. Two of the tracksuits went after Eowyn, one after me. I tossed the leash away and tackled the bastard, beating him down with the hardest punches that I could throw until I was sure that he'd stay down. _Lucky's got another one down – good dog – now there's only three -_

I made a mental note never to get on the cat's bad side when I saw the bloody wreck that he was making of the goon that he'd latched onto. And the noises that it was making... ugh. As much as the possible demonic ancestry of Eowyn's cat bothered me, that wasn't so much of a problem as the two remaining tracksuits that had backed her up against a wall. She was muttering something under her breath and I couldn't get a good enough view of her lips to figure out what it was. I grabbed the leash up off of the floor where I'd dropped it, then snuck in close enough to snarl it around the legs of one of the tracksuits. He fell backward, and that gave her enough room to try to run past.

I say try because the remaining tracksuit got hold of the sash of her bathrobe and pulled her back. He snaked his arm around her neck in a chokehold. I saw her eyes go wide in panic, but I couldn't do anything – I still had the guy on the floor to deal with – but then her face went from panic to something that I could only describe as pure murder. I knew the feeling. Do what you have to because the other guy isn't playing nice and if you don't do something, anything, you're gonna be dead. One elbow went down, back, and in – hard. She then flexed back upward, striking him in the nose with the heel of her hand.

Something crunched and the goon let go with a howled curse in what might have been Russian. The only part that I understood was the “bro” at the end. I looked around for something that I could throw to her that she could use against him, but she was one step ahead of me. A long-handled flashlight, gripped just above the wide end, swung like she was aiming for the fences at Citi Field. “I... am no _bro_.”

It was a good hit, too, since the guy dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the carpet. I took care of whatever resistance remained and then turned just in time to see her sink down onto her couch. The flashlight fell out of her hands and onto the floor. She ignored it. The best way I could describe what I saw then was that she crumpled, the fight going out of her like air out of a paper bag. Her hands went up over her face and even though I couldn't hear it, I could see that she was crying from the way her back shook.

The police came by and asked their questions and wrote up their reports. The EMTs that followed patched up those who needed it. Then all was quiet again, the only signs that anything had happened being a bloodstain on the carpet where Lucky had been a little too enthusiastic in keeping his target down. “Good boy,” I told him and ruffled his ears. Eowyn's cat had returned to his spot on top of the bookcase and now sat there quietly licking his claws. I shuddered. “Good... cat. I guess.”

After being cleared by the paramedics, Eowyn had gone upstairs to get some more decent clothes on. She hadn't come back down yet. I told Lucky to stay put and went up there myself to see what was going on and wasn't surprised to see her curled up in a ball on her bed. “Eo, you okay?” A short silence, then a mumbled negative. “You want me to stay with you?” Longer silence, then a hesitant affirmative. “Okay. Why don't we get out of here for a little while?”

She had no problem with that, so I took her back up to my place and got her settled on the couch again with a blanket and a pillow. Lucky hopped up and draped himself across her. I heated up another cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen counter to think about what had happened. The first time Eo had come across the tracksuits, it had been an accident – and only because she'd been looking for me. Now, because she'd decided to help me out, they'd come after her.

_To be fair, you did tell her to get away while she could. She brought this on herself._

Have I ever mentioned that my inner voice can be kind of a jerk? I shut down that line of logic right there. She might have gotten herself involved in my problem, true, but she'd saved my ass with no questions asked. It wasn't just my problem anymore. It was now our problem, and I wouldn't leave her hanging.


	7. "Futzing Leonard Cohen." (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all fun and games until someone brings out the Kiss Cam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, uh, hey. Wow. Things get a little bit frisky in this chapter. Not graphic, but... yeah. If that's not your thing, though, don't worry - it's not until the end of the chapter. However, if that is your thing, do yourself a favor and look up Leonard Cohen. If you haven't already. *ahem* Onward, and it's only smut if you squint.

Military survival training is brutal and efficient. When it comes to escape situations, its core teaching is that you fight with whatever means at your disposal and that you'd better forget about playing by the rules. It's either them or you, and the only rule is that you get them down and keep them down so that you can get away. There's no fight or flight – just fight. And when I came out of my bathroom and saw those five tracksuits in my living room, I knew that “fight” was my only option.

The only downside to this is that you can't just rewire someone's brain so easily. All of that fear has to go somewhere, and some of it still hangs around for years after the initial trauma. Can you blame me for crying like a little girl afterward? I mean, if even one thing had gone differently, I would have died and you wouldn't be hearing about this from me. That's something that can't be handled with a simple “get over it.” So I let myself be led back upstairs and tucked in with a blanket and pillow on that couch. Lucky soon joined me, and I drifted off into fitful sleep for the next few hours.

I woke up when my rumbling stomach reminded me that I hadn't had anything to eat since earlier that day. Well, that and the low drone of the television with the channel set on some nature documentary. Reindeer, I think. And if my nose wasn't lying to me, there was Chinese food somewhere nearby...

I slowly pushed myself up to my elbows and looked around. Lucky now lay on the carpet next to his owner, who sat with his back up against the couch where he could easily turn around and check on me if need be. Clint heard me move and looked back. “Hey. Figured you might want something to eat after getting some rest. Got a few different things – chicken fried rice, sesame beef, some soup if that's more your thing. How're you doing?”

“Physically, fine. A little bit sore.” I got up, stretched, and picked a tub of soup and a spoon from the assortment of food before going back to the couch. “Mentally... I'd really rather not talk about it. Sorry.”

“S'ok. You don't have to.” Pause, then, “Kinda curious, though. What were you muttering when they had you up against the wall?”

“Oh, that.” I laughed sheepishly. “A line from a movie. 'Just remember to sing.'  ”

An amused snort. “Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin – right?”

“Not going to ask how _you_ know that, but yeah. Thank you, Gracie Lou Freebush.” I gave him a light nudge on the haunch with my foot, said, “This is your apartment. Why're you sitting on the floor when there's room up here?”

“Don't you remember? I grew up with – Oh. That was a hint, wasn't it.”

Clint heaved himself off of the floor and up onto the couch with an artless grunt that I suspected was more of an act than reality. There was no awkward distance between us this time, either, and it felt... nice. “Any other points of etiquette that you think I should know?”

“Nope.” I looked back to the television where a voice-over narrator was calmly discussing the migratory habits of reindeer. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

I muffled a snicker at his choice of words. “Just curious – why are you going out of your way to help me?”

“Why did you help me after I landed on your car? I told you it wasn't your fight.”

I had no argument for that, and I said so. “You've got a point. It's just that all of this...”

“Does it bother you? I can back off.”

“No, don't! I mean, it doesn't.” I winced, muttered, “You're fine.”

This got a curious sideglance but no comment. I didn't say anything else for a while, thinking that if I just shut up I wouldn't dig myself in any further. We passed the next hour in comfortable silence until I caught myself almost nodding off into what was left of my soup. My offer to help tidy up the leftovers was waved off. I was pleasantly surprised when he returned to the couch and let me lean on his shoulder, and if I wasn't mistaken I saw the smallest hint of a smile.

 --

Daylight streamed in over my face. I woke up, startled at first because I didn't recognize the surroundings. Then the events of the previous day began to trickle back in bits and pieces: my shift at work, an early morning walk in the snow, movies and pizza, tracksuits... As I came to more fully, I realized that I'd fallen asleep on Clint's couch. The weight around my waist was his arm, lightly encircling so that I wouldn't fall onto the floor. He was still asleep, his breathing slow and peaceful, and when I turned slightly to look, I saw that same smile. I felt safe – protected – so I let my eyes drift closed again and willed myself back to sleep.

 --

“Tell me again just how you got these tickets?”

“I have my ways.”

“Right.” I didn't trust Clint's poker face any more now than I had when he'd told me over breakfast to keep my schedule clear for that evening. It had taken a little bit of prying to figure out that he had somehow obtained seats to that night's Islanders game against my former hometown team, the Capitals, and a little bit more effort to glean that we'd have a good view of the action.

The only catch had been that I drive to the venue and pay for parking. I spent the whole trip over making awkward small talk and inwardly festering with guilt that I hadn't planned a gift in return. But when I mentioned this, feeling like a jackass the whole time, all I got was a shrug and “Don't worry about it.”

I did my best to take this to heart, but all of that flew out the metaphorical window along with my calm when I saw that our seats were on the first level at center ice. Not front row, maybe about four back, but way out of my price range – and definitely out of his. I stared for a moment at the view after sitting down. “Seriously, though, I feel like a jerk. You should have just stuck with the rock.”

A short laugh to this. “And I told you not to worry about it. This was supposed to be a surprise.”

“Yeah, but - ”

“Are you surprised?”

I couldn't help but laugh as well. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Good.”

I'm not sure even now what his reasoning had been to take me to a hockey game. While I'm not exactly known for my filter, something about sporting events – and hockey in particular – removes any sense of decorum that I might have left. I enjoy myself completely, but at full volume – absolutely nothing ladylike about it. Not like I really give a crap about being ladylike, though. And certainly not when my team is losing.

I've also never really put much importance on the intermission entertainment. Usually it's just interviews with players, or cute stunts with junior hockey teams, stuff like that. Oh, and kiss cams. Those are fun, if only for the split-second gap that it takes for the couple to recognize themselves and then to decide what to do. The reactions usually consist of wide-eyed stares, slack-jawed gaping, embarrassed giggling, things like that. I'd never been on one, and I never thought I would be. But there I was. There _we_ were, staring up at the camera like two deer facing the headlights of a semi.

I shot a sideglance at Clint. He looked back at me curiously. I shrugged. He mouthed a silent answer – _Okay._

It wasn't motion-picture perfect, but... damn. Call me a cliché if you want, but I forgot where I was for a few seconds. Then I became aware of the loud cheers and whistles around us and remembered again. “Not weird?” he whispered.

“Not at all,” I replied.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I had issues focusing on the rest of the game. Watching the Caps lose in overtime usually brought with it a sense of soul-crushing defeat, but this time it didn't hurt so much. I still found myself wondering just what the hell had happened. And then, as the final horn sounded, I realized just what a big mistake I'd made. Or had I? Either way, I was gonna catch crap for this back at work once the holidays were over.

Forget the elephant in the corner. We may as well have had an elephant in the back seat of my car for all of the uneasiness that we carried with us on the way back. It wasn't so much an awkward silence, though, as an uncertain silence. Finally I gave up and turned some music on – but even that didn't work as I thought it would. It started out innocently enough. Some Floyd, some Dylan, some Zeppelin, my usual commute playlist. Some Nine Inch Nails to help with road rage.

“ _Help me, I broke apart my insides. Help me, I've got no soul to sell. Help me, the only thing that works for me – help me get away from myself. I want to f-”_  

I reached over and twisted the volume knob down as low as it would go. “Dammit,” I muttered. Just what I needed, a song that basically anthemized screwing someone senseless... why had I put that on my commute playlist, anyway?

“Take this exit.”

“But that won't take us home - ”

“I know. I don't want to, not before we talk about – whatever this is.” Pause, then, “Trust me?”

I really had no reason to do otherwise, so I did just that... even when the directions that he gave me took us into a part of town that set off every bit of bad juju-sense that I had. But a glance over to the passenger seat showed me that as nervous as I was, the person I was with knew exactly what he was doing.

His directions took us to a parking garage that looked like it didn't see much in the way of regular patronage. When I pulled up to the booth and rolled down my window, the attendant gave me a surly scowl and growled, “Closed, lady. Go somewhere else.”

“It's all right, Joe.” Clint leaned in front of me so that the attendant could see his face. “She's with me.”

The attendant looked skeptical, but still raised the gate so that I could pass. “Whatever you say, Clint.”

I followed directions to a spot on the floor second-to-the-top, parked, turned the lights off, and left the engine idling so that we'd still have the heater. “I trusted you, and we're here. Talk.”

“Right. Give me a minute.”

I turned the music back up, but not loud enough to be a distraction. Just background noise, really, something to keep my thoughts from tangling up into a panic. “Take your time, then.” I found myself thankful for those heated cupholders as I sipped at the gas-station coffee that I'd picked up on our way back from the game. _Well, this could be a good thing – but he's taking a long time to think, so this could be really bad – please don't let it be bad, I can't deal with bad -_

“I dunno what you've heard, but I'm not what you'd call great at... well, just about anything. Well, other than making people hurt. It's what I was raised to do, and I've tried to do good with it. There are people who _need_ to be hurt, and I can do that.”

_So far, bad._ I'd been through this conversation before – well, maybe not this exact one, but so many just like it, and they never ended well.

“Problem with that is that no matter how many bad people I hurt, there are good people who get hurt because of me. I can't keep the damage in one area.”

_Just get to the point so that we can go._

“And then there's you. You could've left me to fight those guys on my own, and that would've been okay with me – but you didn't. And then they came after you. You could've just hit the ground and let me take care of it – but you didn't.” Pause to think, then. “I like that a lot. I know I shouldn't, that it's a bad idea, but does that stop me? No.” A longer pause. “And while we're talking about bad ideas, tonight. Half of New York is gonna know about that by the morning. Does that bother you?”

I laughed half-heartedly. “If it did, I wouldn't have let you do it.” I took a long pull on my coffee. “I know. Bad idea. If this goes anywhere – and that's assuming a lot – it's gonna have 'conflict of interest' written all over it. Your people and my people don't always play well together, and if something goes sour...” I drained the coffee and put it back in the cupholder. “We can always play it by ear, right?”

I realized my clumsy phrasing at about the same time as Clint did, but he took it well – a flat stare that could have been angry had it not been for the poorly-hidden snort of amused disbelief. “Yeah. I guess we can. And now that we don't have thousands of people staring at us, you think we could try all of that again?”

“ _I will speak no more... I shall abide until I am spoken for... if it be your will.”_  

After coming to the end of one playlist, my player had shifted to another – but I was only barely aware of it. This time there was no audience-induced awkwardness, no uncertainty, none of that restraint that comes when you know that you're being watched and you're trying to behave.

“ _From this broken hill, all your praises they shall ring... if it be your will, to let me sing.”_

My nerves were alight, any rational thought pushed far out of reach in favor of the notion that as fun as this was, there were other things that I could be doing with my mouth and my hands and that I was starting to get a cramp in my hamstring from straddling his lap like I was. A quick break for air, a glance back over his shoulder – the backseat was small, but we could make it work if we wanted to.

_“And draw us near, and bind us tight, all your children here in their rags of light. In our rags of light, all dressed to kill – and in this night, if it be your will…”_

Futzing Leonard Cohen. The guy specializes in songs that blur the line between divine and filthy, songs that remind you that maybe there isn't so much of a difference between the two after all, and that getting naked is just as much an act of worship as going to church if you're with the right person in the right situation. Not like this reasoning would have flown over well with a lot of the religious types that I'd grown up around, though; if they knew that I was on my back getting crushed against fine leather upholstery by a man who isn't known for making the most rational decisions but who knows what his body's good for – and let me say here for the record, damn, what a body – well, all of those tightly-buttoned ladies would have been properly scandalized. Guess that's why I'm not much for that kind of church.

But this? I could go for this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N #2: Also, I looked up the play-by-play for the hockey game mentioned in this chapter for the sake of verisimilitude. Having to write about my team losing? Not Cool. But I'm kinda glad to know that they made up for it in the real world a few years later. 2018 Stanley Cup champions, whaaat? How I suffer for the purposes of my art.


	8. "Mysterious Glowing Cube of Possible Doom" (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets sent to keep an eye on a mysterious alien artifact. Predictably, things don't go well.

“Clint?”

Eo didn't use that tone of voice with me very often, and when she did, it never meant anything good. And this early in the morning? Couldn't be anything I wanted to hear, so I pretended I hadn't and tried to go back to sleep.

“Clint. Phone's ringing.”

I fake-snore-snorted and rolled away from her. It'd stop, eventually, and if it was anyone worth talking to, they'd call back later at a human hour – not at four in the morning. It stopped on the tenth ring and everything was peaceful again. Eo muttered something grouchy under her breath in Russian at me but took over as the big spoon, her front against my back, which I didn't mind at all. _I've gotta get a bigger bed if she's gonna be over here all the time._

Then her phone rang. It was her work phone, she'd told me, which she always had to have with her in case of 'an event.' She said something else in Russian, something nastier from the tone of it, and peeled herself away to answer it. “Foley. Go.” I could only half-see her face in the light from the phone's screen, but what I saw wasn't nice. “Understood. He'll be there.” She fell silent and I saw her reach her other hand up to knuckle the sleep from her eyes. “Yes, ma'am. Thank you.”

The phone went dark and she tossed it down onto the mattress. “That was Maria Hill, Clint. She told me to tell you that it's your turn to babysit, whatever that means, and that I'm supposed to drag your lazy ass over to LaGuardia by six to catch a plane.”

“Her words or yours?”

“What, lazy ass? Mine.” She reached over to lightly swat at the part of my anatomy in question. “But she was quite adamant – six. Shower and make yourself human-like, 'kay?”

I picked up the phone and woke up the screen to check the time. “4:05 now... gotta be there by six... we've got time, don't we?” The side-eye that I got was just plain nasty this time, so I sighed and sat up. “Fine, be that way. Might be your last chance for a while, y'know...”

“I can wait. Now _move._ ”

I made a face at her but did as she said, even though I was disappointed that she didn't want to get in a last little bit of personal time before pushing me out the door – my own damn door. Didn't even bother getting dressed before going to use the bathroom, either, because I knew that she'd appreciate the view. This thing had been going on for about a month and a half, and I had to say that it felt kinda good to have someone around like this. I didn't like the idea of leaving, though, just when things were starting to get good, all to sit around at a remote facility in the middle of the desert halfway across the country just to stare at a mystical artifact and hope that it didn't cause any trouble.

And yeah, about that. Some strange energy cube, supposedly from Asgard, and they expected me to do what about it if it decided to act up? I was all in favor of sending the futzing thing right back to Asgard and letting Thor and his buddies deal with it, but nobody ever listens to me. SHIELD had never seen anything like it, so of course they wanted their people to poke it and do science at it and they asked me and Nat to take turns keeping an eye on it. Well, not just the cube, but the people working with it in case it started working some kind of strange Asgardian hoodoo on them. Five months into the experiments and nothing had happened, so it looked like they were cutting Nat loose to go off and do the other things that she does and putting me in her place. So it would be me, the circus boy with a bow and a quiver full of trick arrows, up against the Mysterious Glowing Cube of Possible Doom.

Yeah, nothing could possibly go wrong with that.

I found my clothes waiting in a neatly folded pile on the floor outside the bathroom when I got out of the shower. Eo was nowhere to be seen and didn't answer when I called for her, so my guess is that she was trying to make herself human-like too before being seen out in public. Then I remembered that she had to work today, and I groaned in sympathy. Unlike me, though, she wouldn't have the chance to sleep on a cross-country flight. I didn't envy her that one bit.

Oh, and there was something else about today. I couldn't remember it for the life of me, no matter how I tried, and I finally gave up on it after grabbing my go bag and heading for the door. I stopped long enough to give Lucky some ear scratches and advice - “Eo's gonna take care of you while I'm gone, so be a good boy for her, all right?” - and then walked out the door.

Nobody answered at Eo's apartment, so I went out to check her car. She was huddled inside, practically body-hugging a travel cup of what I guessed was instant coffee, and was nice enough to disable the security system and pop the trunk so that I could toss my gear in back and then join her up front. I didn't even bother to try to talk to her since she was radiating some serious futz-off vibes that I knew had something to do with me. Then I saw that she'd brought a cup of coffee for me, too, and I sipped at it gratefully while she drove.

Have I mentioned that she has some weird tastes in music? I mean, most of it I agree with. You can't go wrong with the classics, and she's got a lot of that. But for each cool thing – like the complete discography of Pink Floyd – she's also got something batshit crazy, like entire albums of Tibetan throat singing. But it works for her, so I won't knock it.

That morning she was listening to some kind of Danish metal group. It was pretty standard, nothing to set it apart except for some jarring harmonica solos. Eo ignored me and sang along: “Well, I've heard that the devil's walking around. I sold my soul way down in the dirt, stole it back, and forever in debt...”  It was a cute thing to hear, but not exactly reassuring.

We got to the airport without a problem at half after five. Eo parked the car at the curb and turned down the radio, then sat there without saying a word for long enough of a time that I started to get worried. So did the cop nearby, too, because I saw him come over and get ready to tap on the window. Eo saw this too and rolled the window down, then reached into her hoodie and brought out her badge lanyard so that the cop could see it. “SHIELD business, sir. Give us a minute, would you?” The cop muttered something ugly about bureaucrats or something like that but gave us our space. Eo rolled the window back up. “So you don't know when you're going to be back?”

“Not exactly, no. No more than four months, if I had to guess.”

She heaved a long sigh, said, “I'll just treat it like a deployment, then. Except I'm the one who has to stay back and wait.” She blinked a few times, quickly, and if I wasn't wrong it looked like she was trying not to cry. “God, this sucks. But it comes with the territory, doesn't it.”

“You've got Lucky to keep an eye on you. And Kate. She's a good kid, even if she's only like twelve years old or something. Her number's by my phone, and I told her to check in on you a few times while I'm gone.”

Eo offered a shaky smile and then, to my surprise, pulled me over to her and kissed me hard. Not like it was a bad surprise. I wasn't complaining. When she finally let me breathe, I saw that my suspicion about her trying not to cry was true. Either that or she was having an allergic reaction to something, which in New York is just as likely of a story as any, but I like to think that she was so moved by emotion over my oncoming absence that she was fighting off tears. “Hey, jerk,” she said. “Don't do anything dumb, okay? I don't want to use what little power I have to get you out of trouble.” Then she kissed me on the cheek and all but shoved me out the door so that I could get my gear and leave.

The cop watched me walk by with his eyebrows lifted. “SHIELD business, huh? Must be nice.”

“It has its perks.”

 --

There's not a lot to say about the research facility where SHIELD kept the doom-cube, except to say that it really was out in the middle of nowhere. I'd been there a month when I realized what I'd forgotten about the day that I'd left: it was Eo's birthday. And then I remembered that her birthday was a week before Valentine's Day – probably the crappiest excuse to sell greeting cards on the face of this planet, if you ask me – but if I didn't want to screw things up, I'd better find some way to send her something. Now if I could just find a phone and apologize for being an asshat...

It's pretty hard to find a phone in a secure, classified research facility. It's even harder to find a phone that isn't constantly being watched or used, so I might have just had to sneak into someone's office in order to use theirs. But one great thing about being an Avenger is that nobody other than maybe ten people will interrupt you if they see you on the phone. They assume that you're up to something important and keep their distance.

After spending fifteen minutes or so to find Eo's work number, I made myself comfy at the desk that I'd taken over for the time being and dialed. Then I remembered the time difference and hoped that she wouldn't be in a mid-morning meeting or something like that. But I got lucky this time. _“Good morning, this is Agent Foley.”_

“Good morning, Agent Foley. Is this a good time?”

I heard her gasp, and then she hissed, _“Clint, you meatball, what are you doing? This isn't exactly private!”_

“I miss you too.” This got a low laugh, and I could almost see the smile behind it. “Hey, listen, I just realized that I missed your birthday. And, uh, Valentine's Day. I'm really sorry. I'll send you flowers, okay?”

This got the tiniest of sniffles and a mumbled _“Okay. Just... is everything all right?”_

“I'd get more kicks from watching paint dry, which in this case is a good thing. What about you?”

“ _About the same.”_ Another sniffle, and then an _oh_ as she remembered something. _“One of my a-hole coworkers found an action figure of you and left it on my desk. Did you know that you have merchandise?”_

I grinned. “Not until now, no. But that's cool... Please tell me that they at least made it look kind of like me.”

“ _For the most part.”_ She raised her voice a little bit and it was pretty obvious that she was doing it for the benefit of someone who was listening in. _“Doesn't have the right butt, though.”_ She then returned her voice to normal. _“Can't stay on here for much longer. People are getting nosy.”_

I looked out the narrow window next to the door. Someone in a lab coat peered back in at me and was doing their best not to act impatient. “Yeah, I kind of stole someone's desk. They might want it back.” I held up a hand so that the lab coat could see it in the universal gesture for _one more minute._ “Everyone in the building behaving? What about Lucky?”

“ _Everything's fine. Lucky misses you too, but he's minding his manners.”_ Eo cleared her throat and added after a long moment, _“It's good to hear from you. Glad that you're safe, even if you're bored out of your mind.”_

“Yeah, me too. I'll be back before you know it.” We then said our goodbyes and I made a quick exit from that office before its owner could figure out that I'd been up to not-official business on his phone.

A few weeks later, I went on a short walk outside to stretch my legs and found a pretty rock. This one was dark and smooth, shot through with veins of something lighter. It looked like some kind of reptile egg, which I thought was pretty cool. The mail clerk looked at me like I was crazy when I asked them if I could send it back east, too, but they let me do it.

I'd been there for two months, two weeks, and four days when the doom-cube started freaking out. Things just got worse from there. I'd told them to send it back to Asgard, but nooooo...

I might not always use it, but I do have common sense. Too bad nobody else seemed to.

 --

“Where's Barton?” Fury asked. Him showing up at the facility was to be expected once the artifact had started acting strange. He was questioning Dr. Selvig now.

“The hawk? Up in his nest, as usual.”

I snorted at Selvig's choice of words. The doom-cube made me nervous even when it wasn't sending off random pulses of power, so I'd chosen to find a spot where I could watch it and the people working with it from a safe distance. Besides, even though I could work in close quarters, I'd be more effective in a fight if I could see the whole room. And did I mention that I thought this whole thing was a bad idea? I know bad ideas. I have them all the time. But I'd signed a contract, I was getting a paycheck, and for once SHIELD was playing nice – so there I was. Nowhere in their instructions, though, had they told me where I needed to sit.

“Barton, report!”

 _Do I have to?_ I thought. But of course I jumped to follow the Director's order. There's something about him that makes it kind of hard not to. Maybe it's the eyepatch, or maybe the no-futz-given attitude and the aura that he's about two seconds away from kicking someone's ass. So I got down from my perch the quickest way I knew how. Sure, I could have used a ladder. But a zipline looks so much cooler, and nobody messes with a guy on a zipline.

“I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things.”

Fury sounded disappointed. Or disgusted. Or both, I could never tell. _And don't you remember me advising against this in the first place?_ “Well, I see better from a distance.”

Fury seemed to accept this. “Have you seen anything that might set this thing off?”

One of the scientists barked a warning to Selvig as we passed. The doom-cube was apparently getting restless. And yet for some reason the Director wanted us to get up close and personal? That, ladies and gents, is how you lose an eye. (I've just been told that that's insensitive coming from a guy who had his eardrums ruptured with two arrows from his brother's quiver wielded by some trenchcoat-ed clown makeup-wearing Polish mafia dickwad. I know, I'm sorry, it won't happen again.)

“No one's come or gone. And Selvig's clean. No contacts, no IMs...” I looked back for a moment at Selvig, who was checking over the latest batch of suspicious readings. “If there was any tampering, it wasn't at this end.”

“At this end.” Though he didn't say it, the 'you're shitting me, son' tone in Fury's voice when he repeated my words was hard to miss.

“Yeah.” I'd done some reading on the artifact when I'd gotten here and asked a few questions from Selvig and the other scientists so that I'd be up to speed on what I was dealing with, and that had given me a few ideas about its sudden misbehavior. “The cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides.”

One of these days I'll learn to keep my mouth shut. In the silence that came after, Selvig could clearly be heard muttering “Not yet...”

_Boom._

Of course it was a door. When it closed again, it left behind a shivering, greasy-haired maniac in leather armor lifted straight from one of those generic fantasy video games. Oh yeah, and he had a spear. A spear with an orb in it that glowed just like the doom-cube. He stood slowly, looked around at where he was – and it didn't take a genius to know that he was picking his targets.

“Sir, put down the spear!”

You know how I said that Nick Fury has an aura that compels obedience? I guess that only applies to people from Earth. Whoever this guy was, he had no intention of obeying and immediately began laying waste to everyone he could reach. The scientists and most of SHIELD's hired guns – easy. Fury got knocked back on his ass, and I just barely got away from the blast of weird energy that would have otherwise fried me.

Now that he'd culled the weak and the unsuspecting, the newcomer now started deciding who he could use. For some reason, he picked me first. Yay for me, right? I'm useful!

No. Hell no.

I tried to get away from him, but his grip on my arm was too strong. I could feel the cold radiating through my nerves up from his fingers, could feel him trying to pry even before the point of the spear came to rest on my chest. “You... have heart.”

The feeling then was cold and fire all at once, and claws and teeth and whispers and screams and things that make me shiver even now to think about. And then my mind wasn't mine. Not all of it, anyway. I could feel my body moving even though I sure as hell wasn't telling it to. I put away my pistol and waited for orders. _No, no no no..._

I don't need to tell you what happened next. You probably already know it, and either way, I don't want to relive it. Even though you can tell me until you're blue in the face that whatever I did wasn't my fault, I still wouldn't believe you. And even when my hand wasn't on the trigger, I still couldn't contain the damage.

Let me tell you a little something, in case you ever get your mind taken over by a psychotic trickster from the realm of the gods: If there's any part of you left that's still you, don't think about anything interesting. Not about anything related to your work or your home. _What should I think about, Clint?_ you ask. Good question. And the answer is... I dunno. Potatoes, where your missing socks go after the dryer eats them, boring stuff. Just don't give the a-hole anything that he can use. And for futz' sake, don't think about anyone who's important to you.

But if you don't remember any of that, it's understandable. You're scared. You want to think of something familiar and comforting. It was dark and cold in the body that was mine but so much not mine, so I guess it's logical that I tried finding the memory of something warm to hold on to.

“ _Are you out of your mind, Clint? It's freezing out there! And the ball's about to drop – we can watch it in here where it's warm, like normal people do.”_

“ _Aw, where's your sense of adventure? Besides, we'll have the roof all to ourselves, and that view... Come on.”_

We'd left the champagne flutes downstairs but took the bottle with us, quickly throwing on boots and coats and scarves and gloves and then sneaking up to the roof access door, already half-drunk on expensive bubbly and giggling like teenagers on their way to do something stupid. I was right – we had the roof to ourselves – so we huddled together and passed the bottle between us while Eo kept track of the time on her watch.

“ _Five... four... three... two... one.”_

The skies lit up with the occasional burst of fireworks. I could hear the sounds of people celebrating the new year around us, and even though I couldn't feel my feet, body heat was all that I needed as I pulled Eo in close to me for our own personal moment of celebration. She was smiling as we kissed and I was glad to know that I could be the one to make her smile. Then we went back inside, like normal people, and found other ways to keep warm.

That is precisely what you don't want to think about when you have Loki of Asgard riding shotgun in your brain case.

“She is lovely, to be sure, and she warms your heart like fire – am I wrong?”

I heard myself telling my temporary overlord that no, he was not wrong. And then Loki began to dig in earnest. If you have not had the unique pleasure of having a psychotic trickster from the realm of the gods rummaging through your mental underwear drawer, I can tell you that it felt about like a cold gloved finger up the backside at the doctor's office. Only difference here is that I didn't even have the chance to turn my head and cough first.

He saw how we met. He saw her fighting off the tracksuits in her apartment, and he saw her fumbling through her ASL primer when she thought she wasn't being watched. He saw the way that she looked the first time that she woke up in bed next to me, he saw her smile over a cup of coffee in the morning, and he saw her use her SHIELD credentials to get the cop at the airport to give us a few more minutes of privacy. “Interesting...”

And then he saw the conversation with Tony, one that I'd almost forgotten, in which it was suggested that something might be different about her. “And you suspect that she might have gifts? Beyond, of course, the charms which you hold in such high regard. Perhaps I should see her for myself. If she does have gifts, I might find them useful.”

I heard myself agree that such an opportunity shouldn't be wasted. But on the inside I was pounding on the walls, yelling my throat raw. She didn't deserve any of this – and yet here I was, bringing it right to her doorstep. I couldn't stop it.

 --

“She gets home from work at around this time every weeknight. That's her car.” It felt sickening to hear myself talk but yet to have no control at all over what I was saying. “We usually walk the dog after she gets back. If you wait until she comes outside, you'll be able to talk to her with minimal chance of interruption.” Not-me paused, thought, then added, “She's paranoid of strangers. If you appear friendly, you'll have a better shot at getting her to stop and listen. That is, of course, assuming that's what you want.”

“Of course. Just a moment of her time, that's all.” Silence followed for a while. Then the entrance to the building opened and Eo appeared with Lucky at her heels. “That must be her. She even wears your colors - how touching.” Loki watched as Eo fiddled with a pair of earbuds and her iPod. Just as he had said, she was wearing my shirt. It was the white one with the bullseye, the one that I had let her keep after finding out that she'd accidentally gotten it mixed into her laundry. “What is she doing?”

“It's music,” not-me explained. “She sometimes likes to sing along.”

“Good to know. Wait here - I will be back shortly.”

He then opened the door and slid out. I saw his garb shimmer and change into something more ordinary, something less likely to attract attention. He then ambled down the sidewalk just like any other resident of the neighborhood out for a casual stroll. Eo shot him a glance, then kept walking - and then she tripped. Her earbuds popped loose and she would have eaten concrete had it not been for the helpful hand of the stranger walking by.

His back was to me, so I couldn't make out what Loki said to her. I did see Lucky tense and snarl, though, and then Eo looked past Loki and saw not-me in the driver's seat of the vehicle that we'd stolen. Her face went pale, and I saw her mouth a single word. _Clint_. I didn't need to hear her to know the thoughts behind it.

She was still standing there as we drove away. My thoughts must have been obvious even though I of course couldn't comment. “In case you were worried, not as if it matters, but I didn't hurt her. She's hurting so much already, so fragile and full of cracks... all I had to do was to give her a little nudge.”

“If I can ask, what did you do?” I was amazed that this question was allowed to slip through the tight grip that he had on my mind.

Loki chuckled. “Just stirred up what was already there, that's all. She has been suffering in silence for years, just like a good little soldier, and all of that pain has had nowhere to go. Imagine what it will be like when she finally allows herself to scream.” He fell silent, and I thought that perhaps I'd get some rest. But that wasn't going to happen. “Oh, and one last thing before we get started: I hope you enjoyed seeing her. That might just be the last time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Eo's listening to a Danish metal band called Volbeat. The song referenced here? "Heaven Nor Hell." Check it out, it's pretty tight... in a weird, Bob Dylan harmonica-meets-Euro-rockabilly kinda way.  
> Also, this is the first time when the MCU comes into this story. Oh, hey, continuity hole! I think it turned out pretty well here. I'm not sure how many other times I'm gonna bring it in, though...


	9. "Million Dollar Baby, or his girlfriend?" (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asgardian mind control is a bitch, ain't it? Agent Foley ponders the function of the tesseract.

One point of criticism that I've encountered for most of my adult life is in regard to my decision-making skills: I either take so long to ponder every aspect of a situation that it eventually becomes a moot point, or I let myself get swept up in something so completely that I don't stop to think about how it's a bad idea until it becomes painfully apparent. While it hasn't been a complete trainwreck, my decision to allow the human manifestation of a Bad Idea into my life could definitely be numbered amongst the latter.

And he was right. Half of New York knew about it the morning after that hockey game, and thanks to the internet, it only took another few hours after that to reach further south. I was doing laundry when my cell phone rang, and when I saw that it was Valerie, I braced for the worst. _“Eowyn Galadriel Foley - ”_ (I'll stop for a moment and let you absorb the magnitude of my mother's nerddom. Got it? Okay, moving on.) _“- what in sam's hell do you think you're doing?”_

“Afternoon to you too, Val,” I muttered. “And I think the correct question in this case would be 'who,' not 'what.'”

The noise that came from the other end of the line could possibly be described as similar to a velociraptor. It's the noise that Valerie makes when she's trying not to laugh and failing, or trying to hide it and doing a piss-poor job. _“Wait a minute. I just saw the picture of you two at the game. Are you saying that you two are also -?”_

“Mm-hmm.”

A long sigh. _“All right, I'm going to put on my mom hat for a moment. I know that you're probably devastated that Bron got engaged, but don't you think that this is a little bit impulsive? I mean, Clint's not only one of them, but he's also your landlord. That's just asking for bad things to happen on so many levels.”_

“I know. We had that talk already.”

“ _And how did that go?”_

“It went well.” Just thinking about that night made me blush, and I coughed uncomfortably. “Er, as well as it could.”

“ _Meaning that you decided to burn that bridge when you got to it and then wound up going at it like wild animals.”_ I mumbled a yes under my breath, and Valerie sighed. _“How did I know?”_

“Because you can feel me turning red from there. You know me too well, Val.”

“ _That I do. Please, just... be careful, okay?”_

“I will. There won't be any little hawks around here any time soon, if that's what you're implying.”

“ _Well, yes, that – and I just don't want you to get hurt. It's like you only just met the guy.”_ I thought back over the timeline of events and realized that I had no room to argue. _“But it looks like he's taking good care of you, sooo... Okay, mom hat's coming off now. I have to know, what's he like?”_

“Uh...?”

A little over a month had passed since then, more like a month and a half, and I'll say that because of the quiet ease with which our lives blended together it certainly didn't feel like the sudden change of events that it actually had been. And then that phone call came. Of course it had to happen on my birthday. Not like it seemed that Clint had remembered, which I was willing to give him a pass on, but it seemed like the universe was giving me the finger when I heard Maria Hill on the other end of the line. It was a grudging testament to the SHIELD rumint network that she knew to call me to get in touch with Clint, and it made me wonder just what other things about us had become fuel for gossip. I did get some small satisfaction that she didn't seem too happy to be awake at that hour of the morning, though.

That said, I was still annoyed at the universe for throwing a wrench into the works just as I'd started to get settled again. And on my motherfutzing birthday! It's bad enough that my birthday is a week before the worst “holiday” on the calendar, but the idea that the person I was looking forward to celebrating both with was being sent off on shady business for who knew how long... and it was four o'clock in the morning. I was in a bad enough mood that I turned down lover-boy's offer of a quick interlude and sent him off to the showers. He did so, grudgingly, but was so kind as to give me a view of what I was missing. Though riddled with scars from too many injuries to count, that man's body is a work of art and he knows it. I left a change of clothes for him outside of the bathroom and went downstairs to get myself as ready for the day as I could be. Shower, granola bar, instant coffee – a cup for me and then, as an afterthought, one for Clint.

I didn't need to spend much time getting my car warmed up - another side effect of Frodo's Stark-given makeover - but the ritual of it was as much a part of getting spun up for the day as getting dressed. In exchange for my cooperation in getting that that lunk to the airport, I'd gotten an officially-sanctioned tardy as well as a favor to be redeemed later, and I thought over what I might possibly request from my organization's upper management as I drove to work after stopping at the airport. It occurred to me as I drove that whatever this “babysitting” business was, it must have been pretty damn important in order for Clint to be rousted out of bed at an ungodly hour in order to take care of it – and for him to be gone without a solid date of return.

My threats to my cubicle-mate were now without sting, and the rest of my coworkers had joined in with the teasing to some degree. I countered their teasing by not letting it have any effect on me, by turning their feeble attempts at humiliation into trophies of sorts. A print of a photo from the hockey game had been left on my desk, so I framed it and put it next to my phone. It was joined shortly afterward by an action figure of Clint looking sharp in his signature black and purple. And when I slouched into the office at a little bit after nine, having used my free pass as an excuse to get a pastry and some real coffee on my way into work, my boss himself decided to jump in on the action. “So, Agent Foley, shall we add hawk-wrangling to your official list of duties?”

I could only assume that the reason for my lateness had been relayed to him, so I raised my cup in a faux salute and replied, “But the word 'duty' makes it sound like I don't enjoy it, sir.” As the days wore on, though, the teasing died down. I'd like to think that my coworkers knew that I wasn't in a good place emotionally, but practicality suggests that they simply lacked fresh fuel.

Lacking my usual physical outlets to relieve stress, and not knowing when I'd get those outlets back again, I decided to return to one of my old favorites: pummeling the crap out of things. It had been one of my hobbies in the military, and the friend who had mentored me was impressed with my quick reflexes and the ferocity that I poured into my lessons. So I ordered a punching bag and paid some deliverymen to put it up in a corner of my living room where I could use it as needed. It took a little while to get back into the flow of it, but my muscles hadn't forgotten the satisfaction to be found in a well-timed jab or the thwock of a gloved fist on leather.

It was during one of these sessions that I finally met Clint's protege, Kate. Well, maybe protege isn't the right word – it has a whiff of the inferior about it as well as one of dependency, and based on what I'd heard of her and what I've come to know since then, Kate is neither inferior nor dependent.

She paid her first visit a month after Clint left. It was a Saturday and though I was on-call, I didn't anticipate that I'd be needed. So I put some good music and some comfortable clothes on, then took to venting my aggravation. I was so focused on what I was doing that I almost didn't hear the knock on the door, and when I didn't recognize the face on the other side of the fisheye, I opened the door warily.

Kate introduced herself and I let her in. She took one look at my sweat-spotted clothes and the punching bag still swaying gently in the corner and let out a whistle. “Clint told me that you might have some anger issues, sure, but he didn't tell me that his girlfriend's the Million Dollar Baby.”

I snorted. “I wouldn't go so far as to call myself that.”

“What – Million Dollar Baby, or his girlfriend?”

I was going to say the former, but Kate's question gave me pause. The term implied some kind of threshold that I hadn't yet crossed, a list of criteria that I wasn't quite sure that I met. “Both, really.”

“Considering that he abused his phone privileges to remind me to check up on you, I think you're it. Oh, and he also wanted me to ask if you liked the new rock.” I laughed and assured her that I did. “Sheesh. I told him that that sort of thing wouldn't work, but...” She shrugged. “Just goes to show that it takes a special kind of person to put up with him. Now, get yourself presentable. I was told to take you out for fresh air and sunlight and to make sure that you get coffee from that one place you like. What does he think you are, a houseplant?”

I excused myself to take a quick shower. When I came back, I saw that Kate had somehow coaxed Bacchus down from his usual perch and had actually gotten him to play with a toy that he'd steadfastly ignored since I'd purchased it. I don't know how she managed to do that, and I still don't to this day.

It was edging towards the end of April when the lid finally blew off of the kettle of awful that had been simmering in the background of my life. I should have known, based on my past experiences with hurricanes and other natural disasters, that quiet does not always equal good. When the teasing from my officemates abruptly stopped, I took it as a sign that they'd tired of their game and moved on to something else. I didn't know that they were walking on tiptoe around me, afraid of aggravating the pain from a wound that would wear me ragged.

On the night when things finally came to a head, I'd gotten back home from work at the usual time. I was tired from hours and hours of bureaucratic minutiae and not looking forward to putting on a brave face in front of the other residents at our nightly gatherings. In addition to my duties at work, I'd assumed the role of de facto building super in Clint's absence and the strain of trying to appear pleasant and competent in front of so many people was starting to wear on me.

The one bit of respite that I got was taking Lucky on his evening constitutional after I got back from the office. This was something that I'd usually done with Clint and I thought it best to keep up the routine even though the third member of our trio was temporarily absent. Lucky was waiting by the door with his leash when I arrived, almost as if he recognized the distant sound of my arrival and knew to be ready. “Come on, boy! It's finally nice enough out that we can get a good walk in before dark.” Lucky barked agreement and eagerly trotted out next to me.

I stopped just long enough after getting out to the sidewalk to put some music on and hook my earbuds in so that I could have some solitude while out and about. Not like I'm antisocial or anything, but after the day I'd had, I didn't even want to interact with random strangers on the street. Plus, the music was a kind distraction from the noise in my head.

As it was, I barely even noticed the stranger until I tripped and fell and he was so kind as to catch me. His grip was strong, almost too strong, and it seemed that he let go only just before his hold turned from helpful to predatory. “You have a beautiful voice,” he said. “But your song isn't a happy one.”

Something in his tone made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “What do you mean?”

“Something precious has been taken from you, snatched from your grasp seeming moments after you first discovered it. And this isn't the first time.”

I started to back away slowly. “All right, you're starting to scare me.”

“You have nothing to be frightened of from me. Shouldn't you be more afraid of yourself and what you might do to those who wrong you?” A wolfish grin. “Look upon my face and know me, shieldmaiden. You will thank me later.”

“Who are you? So far all you've given me is nonsense.”

“My name is Loki. And... nonsense, you say?” A hand to the heart in feigned injury. “You wound me, and one wound deserves another.” He stepped slightly to the side, allowing me to see the vehicle parked and waiting. “You wonder at his silence? He does not speak to you because I hold his tongue.”

Lucky strained at his leash and growled threats at the stranger. I let the sounds fade into insignificance as I looked to the vehicle, and my heart leaped into my throat when I saw who was sitting in the driver's seat. _Clint._ But something was wrong, so very wrong – _He's looking at me, but it's like he doesn't even see me – say something, anything -_

Loki let out a short laugh. “Pay heed to your hound, dear woman. He is smarter than you give him credit for.” He turned on his heel and returned to the vehicle. I could see him exchange a few brief words with Clint, who nodded. And then they were gone. I was left to stand alone on the sidewalk, wondering what had just happened.

Lucky let out a plaintive howl, one mournful note that echoed off of the brick and concrete around us. Something inside me crumbled and it was all that I could do to make it back inside before losing my composure completely. What had I just seen? More importantly, who was that creepy bastard – and what sway did he hold over Clint?

Those questions might seem so simple, but their answers were far more complicated than even I could have imagined.

 --

It was impossible for me to sleep that night no matter how hard I tried. My mind was a tangle of emotions: fury, helplessness, grief, shock, all mixing together in a toxic swirl that threatened to consume me. Not even a session with the punching bag could sort any of it out. So eventually I gave up, made myself as presentable as I could, and went to work early.

Government buildings have a certain tomblike quality to them in the wee hours of the morning before the regular day staff arrive, and SHIELD Central in New York is no different. I encountered very few people on my way through the halls and based on their reactions part of me wondered how much they knew already that I had yet to be told. After getting my first of several cups of coffee from the cafeteria, I made my way up to my office and settled myself in at my desk for what was sure to be my longest day yet.

No one bothered me for the first few hours of the day, and when one of the most junior agents in my office dared approach my desk, she did so with the shakiness of someone asked to defuse a bomb using the top-rated advice in a sketchy Internet forum. “Excuse me... Agent Foley?” It was only when she repeated herself that I became aware of the idea that someone was trying to get my attention. I blearily disengaged myself from the search query that I'd been running since my arrival and looked up at her. “I'm so sorry to bother you, ma'am, but the boss wants to see you in his office as soon as it's convenient.”

This triggered a number of alarm bells in my subconscious, not only for the message but for the wary deference with which it was delivered. I slapped myself awake, an action that the junior agent pretended not to see, and then went to see what my boss wanted.

“She just arrived, ma'am. Do you need me to stick around for this?”

“ _No. Give us some privacy, and if anything noteworthy comes up I'll make sure that Agent Foley passes it on to you.”_

“Noted. Thank you.” My boss waved me over to his desk and gave me his chair. “I'll be around if you need anything, Agent.”

I cautiously settled myself down into my boss' chair and marveled at its comfort compared to those in the office beyond. _But, then again, if I had to spend as much time at this desk as he does..._ I then realized that I was at the other end of a video conference call with none other than the woman who had promised me a favor and excused me from being late for work in exchange for driving an Avenger of our mutual acquaintance to the airport. “Er, yes. Hello. I'm here...”

“ _Agent Foley, I'll try to keep this short. Would I be right in assuming that you're aware now of the situation regarding Loki of Asgard, his theft of the tesseract, and the compromise of three people affiliated with Project Pegasus?”_ I nodded. _“And while I have no doubt of your professionalism, I'll take the time to officially remind you of your jurisdiction.”_

“In other words, this isn't my fight, so stay put until I'm needed.”

“ _Exactly.”_

I sighed. “With all due respect, ma'am, you didn't need to tell me that. He's a god-figure wielding artifacts of unknown power, and I'm a desk jockey who can't even get a new pen out of the supply locker without filling out three requisition forms. What do you expect me to do?”

This at least got a dry smile from Maria Hill. _“We're aware of your background, Agent Foley. Given the right situation - ”_

“Right situation? Ma'am, how is anything in this a 'right situation'?” I fumbled for the right words and bit back a growl when my vocabulary failed me. “He tracked me down last night, Loki did. And you know what he said to me? 'You'll thank me later.' And then he showed me what everyone else here has been too... too... chickenshit to tell me.” I could feel my composure starting to wobble and slip and I took a quick moment to lower my tone before continuing. “I'm aware of the conflict of interest, but why the hell doesn't anyone trust me to be able to do my job? I'm the lead event contingency strategist for this region and I need this kind of information in order to be effective - yet nobody told me that one of our own was compromised because they were afraid it would hurt my feelings.”

“ _And has it?”_

I was amazed that she hadn't gotten irritated at me for my outburst. “I'm tired, ma'am, and I'm under stress. But so is everyone else. While I appreciate their consideration, my personal connection to the matter at hand shouldn't be a reason to stop me from doing what I do best. If he comes back, then of course I'll be thrilled. If he doesn't...” I didn't finish the thought. “No matter what happens, I'll be here to put out the fires, as always.”

“ _We'll make sure you get what you need, then. Thank you, Agent Foley.”_

_\--_

It takes a certain kind of masochism, a special level of futzed-in-the-head, to force yourself to be distant and detached and only watch while awful things are happening and then to formulate hypotheses on how it might just get worse. And if it's someone you care about directly involved in the awful? Yeah.

My desk became my oasis during that time. Ms. Hill was good to her word and made sure that I had access to all of the reports related to Loki and his activities, even down to the apocryphal bits of hearsay which may or may not have been accurate. It was comforting to be able to immerse myself in a sea of information again, to return to old habits and to put my training to good use, but the effort to distance my emotions from the name attached to many of the reports was draining. And my coworkers knew it, too. Nobody was laughing now and even the worst of them knew to keep quiet and maintain a safe distance so that I could work uninterrupted.

_Just don't think about it. Asgardian mind control isn't your division._ I sighed and put my pencil down at this point; I'd been tapping it against the scratch pad that I kept on my desk and had filled a substantial patch of it with blots of graphite. _But what is, then?_ Resting my face in my hands, I let out a long sigh. _Trying to outwit a trickster would be a steep order for me even at my best._

I don't know when I fell asleep. All I know is that I came to sometime later to my cubicle-mate gently shaking my shoulder. “Come on, Eowyn. Naptime's over.”

I came to with a snort. Someone had draped my coat over my shoulders, and someone else had put a cup of coffee and a granola bar where I could reach them if I needed them. “Holy jeebus,” I grumbled, propping myself upright again. I knuckled the grit from my eyes and peered at the clock. “Have I been out for that long?”

“Most of the day,” Lowell said with a sympathetic smile. “But we all thought you looked like you needed it. The boss has already gone home, so he told us to tell you to wrap up what you're working on and do the same.”

I looked down at the scratch pad. Scribbles, doodles, fragments of sentences, crossed-out words... none of it made sense. “Might as well go now. My brain's pretty much mud and I won't be able to do much anyway.”

 --

You know what I said about complicated answers to simple questions? Sometimes you just need to step away from the problem for a while and give your brain something else to work on, and then you just might get the answer – or a piece of it, as the case was for me. And even then it wasn't even an answer that I really wanted.

_The cube is a doorway to the other end of space..._

I'd watched the video from the Pegasus facility more times than I cared to think about, memorized every motion, every word. It was cold reassurance to think over these last few moments before Loki had emerged from the portal and shot everything to hell, no small wonder that I clung to these images of Clint like a life preserver. It seemed cruel, though, that my brain would bring them up again in what scant time that I had to rest.

Even though I'd fought tooth and nail against it – after all, I had work to do as long as Loki was at large – my boss had insisted that I get out of the office for a little bit to clear my mind. One day had been spent venting my frustration physically with an extra-long session at the punching bag and taking Lucky for an extended ramble around the neighborhood. The next day was more of a mental break and, even though I'd had my misgivings about it, I'd taken the recommendation of one of my coworkers and scheduled an acupuncture session. Couldn't hurt to try it, right?

There is nothing relaxing about lying on a table mostly nude while a stranger pokes needles into your body. They can play all of the soothing music that they want, have a fountain running in the background, burn incense, whatever. None of it changes the fact that for an hour, you are essentially a human pincushion.

_The cube is a doorway to the other end of space..._

Something about that phrase must have important because it kept popping back up in my thoughts no matter how hard I tried to relax. This time I let it stay and brought up the other seemingly random events that had happened since Loki's initial appearance. Rumors of a tech development facility – _to build what, though?_ \- and then the raid in Germany, a gruesome assassination in order to gain access to a rare metal – _iridium, known for stabilizing properties –_ and then the lab was shut down, its purpose achieved – _on the move again, but where?_

_A doorway – doors open from both sides -_

I sat upright, hastily snatching at the sheet covering me and startling the acupuncturist. “Holy shit. Holy shit, I know what they're up to!”

I quickly paid for my session and dashed out the door. The receptionist tried to tell me something but I didn't catch it. My mind was racing furiously a million steps ahead of the here and now, and now that I'd figured out the what, all I needed was the why.

It was a testament to the composure of the security guards that they let me pass as I was - wild-eyed and muttering and looking a sight in the clothes that I normally didn't even wear out of my apartment – without commenting. My coworkers stared when I threw open the office door and blasted through, the heavy wooden panel ricocheting off of the wall with a loud thunk that caused picture frames to rattle on their hooks and interns to scatter like pigeons. Lowell jumped at the sight of me. “Um, hi, Agent Foley. Aren't you supposed to be off today?”

I waved her off and flopped down into my chair. It took all of my remaining focus to type my login correctly and I found myself cursing the byzantine rules governing password complexity as I fumbled it twice and nearly missed it a third time.

My boss then appeared by my desk, doubtless summoned by one of the interns. “Ah, Foley! Couldn't stay away, could you?”

“I had a breakthrough, sir. Give me a moment.” I had all of the pertinent reports and other information saved in a folder, and I opened them now and scanned them to see if my hunch was correct. “That's it! That has to be it! Oh my god, I'm gonna hate myself if I'm right.” In the hush that followed, I realized that most of the office had gathered to watch me ramble and mutter and scribble like a madwoman. Fifteen pairs of eyes looked at me with a mixture of anticipation and, if I wasn't mistaken, a bit of nervousness. “Don't you get it? Watch the video feed from the Pegasus lab again, the answer's right there.” When nobody spoke up, I let out an agitated noise. “A doorway! They're building a doorway, and they're gonna let something through! The notes are all right there.”

My boss looked down at the scratch pad that I'd thrust into his hands. “Well, shit.”

“Putting it mildly, sir.” I ran my hands through my hair as I usually did when I was trying to think and then blinked a few times in startlement when I realized what everyone had been staring at. “Why in hell didn't anyone tell me that I look like Pinhead?”

One of the interns finally got the courage to talk. “Truth be told, ma'am, you were kind of scaring us.”

My boss gave me a comradely slap on the back. “Good work, Foley. If we survive this, I'll make sure that you're properly recognized.”

“Just make sure” I pulled one needle from my scalp, winced, and then searched for the next “that it gets” another needle, another pull “to the people” three more needles “who can use it.” One final needle. “I'm gonna get some coffee. Whoever thought that stripping me naked and sticking me full of metal slivers was a good idea, you've got a fifteen minute head start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: "rumint" = "rumor intelligence." Based off of SIGINT, or signals intelligence.


	10. "The dungeon master running this campaign is a dick." (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint goes on sabbatical following the Chi'Tauri invasion of New York. Agent Foley needs a vacation as well and tags along for a trip to the farm.

It's no secret that sometimes the easiest way to fix a machine that's gotten stubborn is a to give it a good bit of percussive maintenance – that is, give it a solid whack and hope that jars something back into place. It works for carnival rides and for military equipment (if what Eo says is true)... and, lucky for me, whatever magic Loki'd worked through that staff. Granted, that meant Nat had to punch me in the face. Then the hard part was up to me.

Have you ever tried to get anything done while fighting off a wicked hangover? It makes simple things like getting dressed and talking to people almost impossible. Now imagine that times... I dunno, a thousand. That's what I had to deal with, and to top that off, I had to help fight off an entire motherfutzing alien invasion. It's a rough job, but someone's gotta do it.

If you'd asked me a few years before what I'd had to live for, I would've had a rough time answering that. Things were pretty much crap at that point, too, but a lot of that was my fault – which is what I get for thinking with anything else other than my brain. If you'd asked me at just about any point during that whole mess if it would make a difference to me if I got through it all right, I probably would have said no. But I got through it and at the end I found out that I wasn't as alone as I thought I was. I started off as a miserable lowlife with no sense of home, no attachments, nothing except for my gear and a snarky girl who did a far better job at being me than I'd want to admit in public. I ended with one hell of an ally, a nice little place of my own in an apartment building full of adopted family, and a dog. Oh yeah, and a lady who thinks I'm kinda cute and worth keeping around in spite of all of my bullshit. But she showed up a little bit later.

You want to know who I was doing this for? Earth, sure, if you're a reporter asking me questions for a newspaper. But to be honest, I just wanted to go back to the roof and Tito and the guys bitching about the Mets over hot dogs and burgers and beer. I wanted to be able to take my dog for a walk, then go crash on the couch with my girlfriend and put something on TV and not watch it. So I guess you could say that I was finally doing something for me for once. Earth's great and all as a symbol. I just wanted to go home.

The crew had a nice little party waiting for me when I got back. They didn't seem to know anything about my part in creating the mess that had leveled part of Manhattan and could've killed them all if it hadn't been stopped. All they knew was that I'd helped protect them, just on a bigger scale. I didn't feel like correcting them. Makes me sound like kind of an a-hole, sure, but put yourself in my shoes and tell me that you wouldn't do the same thing.

Eo was the only one missing out on the party. I was too tired to remember where she was at first until Deke pointed out that she'd been keeping weird hours lately, and then the guilt hit me. Come to think of it, I'd rather have gotten punched in the face again than to think about the conversation that I was gonna have to have with her once she finally got back from the office. Something like, “Hey, honey – you know that alien invasion that was all over the news? I might have had something to do with that. Not like it was my fault or anything. Loki made me do it. And, uh, I might have led him right to you so that he could mess with your head too.” Sound like fun to you? Well, you weren't the one who'd have to eat crow and hope that you wouldn't wind up losing one hell of a good thing because of it.

I had no clue to start, so I decided to sleep on it for a while and clear some of the cobwebs out of my head. Something about flowers, maybe...

 --

I conked out so hard that my “sleeping on it” turned into me being passed out cold for sixteen hours. It would have been longer if it hadn't been for Lucky nudging me to make sure that I was still alive. And I hurt like hell, like I'd been left on spin cycle for too long. You tend not to notice when you're on your feet and fighting to stay alive, but what they don't tell you is that once you stop moving and rest, that's when it all catches up to you. Gravity's a bitch and inertia's her ugly stepsister – and training can only compensate for so much.

I got up with a groan and went to the bathroom to de-crunchify myself. Looking in the mirror, I realized that I looked as bad as I felt. _But I survived. That's what matters, right?_

After making myself look a little less gross, I took Lucky out for a walk so that we could both get some air. The neighborhood was still eerily quiet, like people were staying inside to make sure that the danger had really passed before coming out again. It makes sense if you think about it. New York gets the crap kicked out of it on a regular basis and you kinda learn to keep your head down until you know it's safe. And this time I was okay with the quiet. I really didn't want to have to deal with anyone else's gratitude.

He might have made a lot of other tweaks to the car, but one thing that Tony didn't mess with in Eo's 'Stang was the sound of the engine. It's a low grumbling purr of power and I'm glad he left it alone. That sound is my first clue that she's home from work, one thing of beauty right before another, and hearing it this time while I was out with the dog made me happy in a way that's hard to explain. She must not have seen me, though, because she drove right by without stopping. I didn't get long to look at her as she passed, but I could see from the way that she hunched in the driver's seat that it had been another long day at the office – probably the latest of many. _Go and talk to her, dummy,_ I told myself. _Looks like she needs you as much as you need her._

_\--_

I could feel the sweat on my palms as I knocked on Eo's door, and the plastic wrapping on the bouquet that I'd picked up at the corner store on my way back crinkled under my fingers. I was nervous, but it was time to face the music. Just this once, anyway, and just for her.

No answer. I knocked again and listened. She had the radio on, or maybe the television, but still no reply. So I gave her a few minutes before trying a third time. “Eowyn? You alive?”

That at least got a response. I heard scrambling footsteps, pausing just long enough on the other side of the door as she stretched to peek through the fisheye. Then fumbling with the lock and the deadbolt and the safety chain, the hinges creaking as the door was pulled open. Eo stood stock-still for a moment, staring up at me, her hand over her mouth. She hadn't changed out of her work clothes yet, and from the redness around her eyes I could see that she had been crying. A lot. “Hey, I'm back. And I brought you flowers, just like I said I would.”

“Hey, jerk. Get in here.” Her smile took the sting out of it and I did as she said, looking around the place as I stepped through the doorway. “I'm sorry about the mess. It's just, uh...” A kick to push a pair of shoes out of my way from where she'd left them on the floor. High heels, black patent leather, expensive-looking and not what I'd expect a bureaucrat to wear to the office. “It's been a long month, that's all. But you know that.”

“I know.” I held out the flowers to her. She took them and gave them an appreciative sniff. “And I know it's my fault.” I watched as she went to the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets. She brought out a pitcher and filled it up partway with water, then put the flowers in it and set them out on the counter. A simple black skirt, a crisp white blouse, no jewelry, not a hair out of place – Eo was the image of elegance, even though I could see that her hands were shaking. “I saw what the city looks like. I saw the casualty lists. All of that's on me - ”

“Shut up, Clint.”

_Okay, not what I expected._ “But you saw what happened, didn't you?”

Her hands flexed once, the knuckles white. I could see the tendons tighten. “I _know_ what happened. I watched all of the video, read every single report.”

“So you saw how ugly it was, then - ”

“Ugly?” She laughed. “Ugly is getting a letter of commendation and a pat on the back in a conference room and then going two floors down to watch the latest names being unveiled on the memorial wall. I did that in my last job, too. I might not be putting warheads on foreheads anymore but the feeling is still the same.” A long, ragged sigh. “Ugly is watching someone you love do horrible things, knowing they have no control over it, and being terrified that the next report that you read will be of them being neutralized. Or, worse, that you’ll see it for yourself.”

I might be dense, but I didn't miss the message. “How can you say that when I brought him right to you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to push me away?”

I shook my head.

“Good. Then come over here and show me that I'm not an idiot for fighting for you.”

Being forced to watch myself under Loki’s control was like being locked outside at night in the dead of winter, and it had been hard to shake that feeling of cold even when I'd gotten my mind back. But that slimy freak had been right about one good thing – this was fire.

 --

“So let me get this straight. You got a favor from Maria Hill in exchange for taking me to the airport and you used it to ask for a vacation?”

“Get your feet off the dash. This is my car, not your living room.” Eo gave me a sharp look out of the corner of her eye to where I'd kicked my feet up and made myself comfortable. I put them back on the floorboard. “And technically it's a paid sabbatical of indeterminate length – half-pay, but no questions asked. They don't know where I'm going or for how long, only that I'll come back when I'm ready.”

“Sounds like a vacation to me. What kind of line did you have to feed them in order to get them to sign off on it?”

“Only that I solved a potential global crisis on my day off in my pajamas with half a dozen needles sticking out of my scalp.” The picture in my mind made me almost choke on my soda from laughing while trying to drink. “Or at least helped to solve it. I gave them a piece of the puzzle, anyway.”

“And what else did you tell them?”

“That I needed some time to get my head straight. Not a line, for what it's worth.” Eo looked down to the GPS screen on the dash and frowned. “Remind me of where exactly we're going?”

I grinned. “Just a little place out in the middle of nowhere. Kept it even after I moved to the city, figured that I could use a place to run to if things got bad. Now seems as good of a time as any for it.”

Eo snorted. “With the bureaucratic shitstorm that's brewing up top, you might be right. Still not sure why you asked me to come along, though.”

“Is there a reason why I shouldn't have?” I let her think about that for a little while. We rode in silence for the next half-hour or so, and I kept an eye on the landmarks until I found what I was looking for. “Turn up at that fencepost. If you follow your GPS, you're gonna wind up in a pond.”

“So we're really off the grid, then. Nice.”

“As far as phones and satellite navigation go, yeah.”

Eo turned where I'd told her to, taking the car from the paved county road onto a dirt road that also served as a property boundary. “You sure we're headed in the right direction? I think I can hear banjos.”

I gave her a dirty look that was only half-serious. “You're the one complaining to me about how crowded it is back in the city. This is just about as not-crowded as it gets.” I squinted off into the distance. “See that gate up there? Stop for a minute so I can get out and open it.”

It was starting to get dark when we pulled up at the end of the driveway. I'd asked one of the neighbors to keep an eye on the place in exchange for letting them use the pastures for their horses, and I'd called them when I first got the idea to come back out so they'd know to expect me. It looked now like they'd left the porch light on along with a few of the lights inside, and there was even a bowl of fresh fruit waiting on the kitchen counter next to a couple of sacks of groceries. “Go on, look around. Make yourself comfortable, and I'll fix up something to eat,” I told Eo. “This is your house too as long as you're here.”

She turned an interesting shade of red and disappeared for a while, I'm guessing to explore. There wasn’t a lot to see; the house was mostly empty with only the basics in terms of furniture since I'd planned to add more once I got married and started a family of my own. The marriage had happened, but the family hadn't, and then pretty soon afterward the marriage wasn't much of a thing either. Turns out that Bobbi didn't care much for rural life. There were a lot of other things she didn't care much for, too, but at least she'd been civil about it.

I could hear Eo moving around upstairs, opening doors and peeking into the rooms and getting a feel for the place. _Why'd you bring her here? She had a good point in asking, and she's gonna want a better answer than 'why not.'_ Footsteps back down the stairs again, through the living room, and into the hall. A door opened, then closed again after a moment. I didn't hear from her for a while after that, long enough for me to get worried. I was just about to go check on her when she showed back up in the kitchen, changed from her travel clothes into something more comfortable. “Everything okay?”

“Place could use a little bit of work, but it's nice enough. I did you a favor and changed out the sheets on your bed.”

I almost asked aloud what the point was if we were just gonna mess them up later, but I kept it to myself. “Thanks. Hey, would you mind getting me a knife?”

I'd decided to go for simple in terms of food – good ol' PB & J – figuring that we could do something fancier when we both weren't so tired from the trip. It'd taken me a little bit to find the stuff I needed to make them, though, since I hadn't been in this kitchen for a while. As I asked Eo for help, I mentally smacked myself in the forehead because I realized she'd never been here and wouldn't know where anything was. She shrugged, said “Sure,” and walked past me, lightly trailing her fingers over my back in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up. Oh, and she found the silverware drawer. Is this something that all women can do? Not like I'm trying to make jokes about women and kitchens, but every woman I've known has this kind of sense for knowing exactly where that one drawer is. Eo got a knife, handed it to me, and then got two beers out of the fridge without being asked to.

I don't remember a lot of what we talked about that night over dinner. What I do remember is watching her trace the woodgrain in the tabletop with the tip of her finger as we talked and ate, lazy and slow like she was doing it without thinking. Her hands are small, fine-boned, perfect for all kinds of interesting things, and after watching her for a while it was it was all I could do to focus on what she was saying instead of letting my brain wander.

That fight was lost as soon as she got up from the table. I'm not sure if it was watching her tug her shirt down from where it had ridden up while she was sitting or when she leaned right in front of me to get my dishes so that she could take them back to the sink, but yeah, my brain was pretty much gone from that point on. I tried to be a gentleman about it. I didn't get in her way while she finished the cleaning up, kept my hands to myself and only around her waist while she stood at the sink doing dishes.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked. She leaned back slightly, increasing the amount of her that was pressed up against me.

“I don't know, you seem to be doing a good job so far.” I let one of my hands dip between the waistband of her pants and the skin of her hip, then grumbled at her when she reached one dishwater-damp hand down and plucked my fingers away. “Now that's just mean.”

“Not while I'm working.” I couldn't see her face but I knew that she was grinning as she took extra time in making sure that each dish was spotless. She put the last of them to dry on a towel next to the sink, hung up the washcloth over the tap, and said, “All done.”

I gave her enough space to turn around, then pinned her up against the counter – chest to chest, which was nice, hip to hip, even better. And you know how I mentioned Eo's hands? They might be small, but they're strong. I got a fresh taste of that when she reached around and down and dug her fingers right into my backside in a possessive grip that caused what little brainpower I had left to fry and die. “Floor, table, or bed? Your choice.”

Eo thought over the options for a minute. “Bed's more comfortable. I checked.”

“Did you, now.”

We didn't make it that far. We got as far as the couch and shirts off and things were going pretty well, or so I'd like to think, when I once again got interrupted by the consequences of my own past actions. Hawk-blocked. But at least this time it wasn't the tracksuit army, so that's good, right? I was messing with the hooks on the back of her bra when both of us noticed a vibration coming out of her hip pocket, soon followed by the muffled sounds of Eo's ringtone . _“Yeah, here comes the water, it comes to wash away the sins of you and I. This time you'll see...”_ Some mid-aughts rock supergroup, not bad, but not what I wanted to hear right now.

“Shit!” Eo hissed, and I was thinking the same thing. She did a little shimmy to get to her phone, pulled it out, checked the caller ID and groaned. “It's my mom. I thought you said we were off the grid!”

“We are. Just, uh, not to the tech that Tony put in your phone.”

Eo scooted back away from me with a glare that was like a bucket of ice water down the shorts. “You let Tony touch my phone? Why the hell do you keep letting Stark mess with my stuff?”

_Think, Clint, think fast._ “I just wanted to be able to keep in touch with you, that's all. Can you blame me?”

“Fine, I'll give you this one. But if my toaster starts talking back to me, you and I are going to have to have a little chat.” The phone fell quiet for a second, then started back up again. “If I don't answer her, she's just gonna keep calling and her timing might be worse.”

“All right, I can wait.” I made myself as comfortable as I could, things being what they were, and silently hoped that Eo's mother wasn't the chatty type. Not only was she chatty, but she was also animated and loud – as I found out when she gave her daughter the first-middle-last name scolding usually saved for something truly rotten at a volume high enough for even me to hear.

“ _Eowyn Galadriel Foley - ”_

I realized at that point that in the seven or so months that I'd known her and the five or so that we'd been close, I'd never found out Eo's full name. Not until now, and god, the timing – I tried not to laugh. It didn't work. Eo glared at me again, and still I couldn't stop laughing. I wasn't laughing at her (but the murder in her eyes told me that she thought I was) and even seeing her mouth the words _Shut up, Clint_ couldn't make it happen.

“ _-and I couldn't reach you and I was so worried. Tell me you're okay. Are you okay?”_

“Yes, Mom, I'm fine. Trust me, I'm fine.”

“ _You don't sound fine. You sound tense. But of course you would, half the city got blown up by aliens. First hurricanes, then would-be terrorists, and then this? You should just go off and live out in the middle of nowhere by yourself. Or find yourself a nice – someone – and live with them, but still out in the middle of nowhere. I guess what I'm trying to say is could you just stop living in places where you risk getting killed off in strange ways every other year?”_

Eo rolled her eyes. I saw her shift her phone so that both of her hands were free, and then I was pleasantly surprised when she tried to tell me what was going on. _Meet my mom. She thought the aliens killed me. Isn't she sweet?_ I laughed again, but quieter this time. Eo continued her narration. _She was like this after Katrina. I was in Texas. She thought I died then too. Same with Ike, and Irene, and Sandy._

The mention of Sandy brought me up short. _Sandy? You too?_

_Yeah. I was near DC. Not as bad as here, but I had the flu. Couldn't leave home. Thought that if the storm didn't kill me, the virus would. It was scary._ A long sigh. _God, won't she stop talking? Same thing every time._

_She worries because she cares,_ I replied. _All good moms do._

The eye-roll was only half-hearted this time. _Now she's going on about my love life._ I tilted my head questioningly. Eo responded by putting the call on speaker phone. “-I don't usually read those kinds of sites, Eo, they're trash, but your cousin Phyllis emailed me a link to an article talking about how you're supposedly dating one of those hero types – oh, which one – Hawkguy?”

_Eye, not guy,_ I said, sighing. _Why can't anyone get it right?_

It was Eo's turn to snicker, but not without correcting her mom. “It's Hawk _eye_ , Mom. And his name is Clint. He's really not that bad...”

_Thanks a lot,_ I said, but I made sure to add a smile so she knew I was kidding.

“ _I'm sure he's a model citizen, dear, but what did I say about living somewhere safe? You know that being with him is just going to increase your chances of being targeted by some whackjob with a grudge - ”_

The blood drained from Eo's cheeks. She ducked her head down and covered her face and I could guess that she was trying hard not to get upset with her mom. I felt a stab of guilt, so I nudged her with my foot to get her attention. _Want some help?_ She nodded weakly. I picked up the phone, trying to ignore that she'd kept it in her lap and there were other far more pleasant reasons why I wanted my hands to be in that area. “Mrs. Foley?”

“ _Yes? Who is this?”_

“Clint. Hawkeye. Whatever floats your boat. Listen – your daughter's doing amazing work and you should be proud. Give her some credit, all right? A lot of people would be dead if it wasn't for her.” I saw Eo lift her head slightly with a shaky smile lighting her face. “She's safe, she's fine, and she's also very busy doing, uh, Avengers stuff. She's part of the support staff.” I could hear a deep breath being taken on the other end of the line and knew that Eo's mom was gearing up to ask a whole butt-ton of questions, so I headed her off at the pass. “Agent Foley will call you back when she's available, and please understand that she won't be able to disclose all details of her activities. Have a good evening.”

I then ended the call, shut off the phone, and spent the next few minutes separating the phone from its battery. When I looked up again, I saw that Eo was the one trying not to laugh this time. “Seriously, Clint? You do realize that she's going to grill me the next chance she gets.”

I shrugged. “If she asks you something you don't want to answer, you can just tell her it's classified.”

Eo snorted. “And... Avengers stuff?”

“Not entirely a lie. What she doesn't know doesn't hurt her.” I put the phone components on the coffee table where they would be safe and out of reach. I didn't expect when I looked back up for Eo to lean in so that she could cup my chin in her hands and give me a long, soft kiss that quickly reminded my brain where we'd left off before that unwanted interruption. “Um. Well, it's getting kinda late and - ”

Eo got up from the couch and bent for a minute to get her shirt from where it'd landed on the floor. I'm pretty sure that the view I got was intentional. “Don't tell me that a quick call from my mother is enough to scare you off.”

“Nope. Just a little detour.”

Her smile was anything but shy this time. “Then are you gonna get your ass to bed or what?”

I tried not to look too eager as I got up and followed her. “Yes, ma'am.”

 --

We settled into a comfortable routine of sorts over the next week. After finding reasons to stay up way too late, we'd sleep in until one of us was hungry enough to crawl out of bed and make breakfast. That person would start up the coffee pot, the scent of which would summon the one remaining in bed to the kitchen. After breakfast and attempts at showering that usually led to some kind of distraction, I'd find something to work on around the house and Eo would either go for a long walk around the property or bring out one of her craft projects. She likes working with yarn, says it's therapeutic. I don't know anything about that, but I do have a scarf from her and though it's plug-ugly it's one of the warmest and comfiest pieces of clothing that I own. But I'm getting away from myself.

Whoever was the closest to the house would make dinner, after which Eo would get some light reading in before we went to bed. Going to bed did not always mean going to sleep, and the cycle would then start over.

Eo went out to her car one night to get a new book for her nightly reading and didn't come back for some time. I knew it was pretty unlikely that anything had happened to her, but I decided to go out anyway and check. What I didn't expect was to see her sitting on the hood of her car, leaning up against the front glass so that she could get a better look up at the dark night sky. “See anything good?” I asked her.

I could see her grin in the faint light from the porch. “Come on over here and look,” she replied. “There's room enough here for two.” I did as she suggested, but not without a shudder at the memory of the last time I'd been on top of her car. “See? It's a lot more comfortable when you're not trying to put your butt through my windshield.”

“Still can't believe that's the first part of me that you saw up close. But I guess you liked what you saw. Came for the booty, stayed for the... uh...” I sighed. “Yeah, I got nothin.'”

I got a dig in the side from Eo's elbow as payment for my trouble. “ _Oi, durak._ I like other parts of you, too...”

“Yeah, I know.” This got a snorting laugh from her that was good to hear. I hadn't heard her laugh like that since before I'd left to look at that goddamned doom-cube. We lay there in silence for a long while, and I might have reached out and took her hand. You know, just to help keep her fingers warm. “I'm wondering something, though.”

“Hmm?”

“How can you look at the stars and not be scared out of your mind? After what we went through, I kinda just want to leave that door shut.”

Her smile was softer this time, and when she finally spoke again her words were almost too quiet to hear. “'Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.'”

“That's pretty and all, but... poetry?”

“It's about an old astronomer getting ready to die, but if you look at it another way...” She stopped to think for a moment, then said, “For everything that's out there, I want to think that not every alien species is a race full of murderous a-holes out to conquer us and raze our planet. We just rolled a one on our first encounter. Either that, or the dungeon master running this campaign is a dick.”

It took me a minute to realize what she was referencing, but when I did, I chuckled under my breath. “Tell me you did not just go all Dungeons and Dragons on me there.”

“So what if I did?”

“Eowyn Galadriel Foley, you are a grade-A dork – you know that?”

Eo raised her free hand up over her forehead in the classic “loser” slang sign. “Born and raised. But you love me anyway, right?”

I lifted her hand held in mine and kissed her knuckles. “You know I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N : Things got a little frisky in this chapter, too. I would've mentioned this at the beginning, but as you've undoubtedly noticed, Mrs. Foley has a unique knack for interrupting at the worst possible time. She is awkward commentary at its finest. You'll see more of her later.
> 
> Also. Eowyn Galadriel Foley. With a car named Frodo and a childhood cat named Smeagol, this was pretty obvious. (Though it's worth noting that, given the chance, my mother - the original owner of Frodo the 'Stang - would've given me one of these names.)


	11. "Midwestern free-range beefcake" (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Foley's sabbatical is coming to an end, though she has even more questions now than when it began.

That night was the first of many during our stay out in the middle of nowhere that we lay out on the hood of my car to look up at the stars. I pointed out constellations and other notable celestial bodies and told stories of cool things that I'd seen during my attempts at amateur astronomy. I also might have shared a memory or two – okay, more than that – about my love of all things space starting at a young age. But if Clint was bored by any of this, he didn't show it. For all I know, he just enjoyed listening to me talk.

“If I'd known we were going to be this far out, I'd have brought my telescope with me. I've lived with light pollution for so long...” I shrugged. “Ah well. Coulda shoulda woulda, right?”

“Maybe next time.”

“Maybe.” I didn't know what else to say to that, so I returned my attention to the stars. “Let's see here. I told you about Leo a few nights ago, and Cancer...”

“What about that one? That cluster, right below Cancer.”

I squinted to follow where he was pointing, then laughed. “Ah, yes. That's only part of the largest modern constellation – the many-headed snake monster, or as we both know it - ”

“Hydra.” Clint snorted. “Damnit. Can't even get away from them out here.”

I rolled my eyes. “I guess so. But puzzle me this – isn't their emblem an octopus, with a skull for the head?”

“Yeah, I never got that either.”

 --

_What did he mean, next time?_ What had surely been an offhanded remark wound up lodging in my brain for the rest of the evening and made me restless even in the wee hours of the night, leaving me to stare up at the ceiling above us while Clint slept soundly next to me. And then there was the fact that he'd basically given me the run of the place. _It's your house too as long as you're here,_ he'd said, or something similar. We'd taken up a quiet domesticity in the time that ensued, and I hadn't thought about it too much since it offered me peace from the mess back in New York.

But now, lying in bed with the morning sunlight creeping in through the window, a question that I'd been doing my best to avoid since our arrival came back to my mind. _Why did he bring me here?_

The barn had been converted into a workshop space of sorts with room to train away from prying eyes. I'd discovered this on one of my many afternoon rambles around the property and noticed the punching bag strung up from one of the rafters. I was suddenly grateful that I'd packed my exercise gear into my car as I found myself in need of a way to work through my thoughts and blow off some steam that did not involve a partner and some degree of nudity. Not like I minded that one bit, but I needed the unique release that driving your fist into a solid obstacle could provide and I needed to pursue it without any distraction – attractive as that distraction might be.

I slipped out of bed and got dressed as quietly as I could manage, stopping only to lean down and brush my lips across Clint's cheek before leaving the bedroom. “I'll be back in a little bit,” I told him. He stirred and grumbled something about waffles in his sleep but didn't open his eyes.

I then left the cozy warmth of the house and made my way to the barn. The punching bag was where I'd remembered seeing it, and after stripping off my hoodie I squared off and faced it. It was heavier than what I was used to and it took a harder hit in order to move it. _Hell – how strong is he?_

As nice as it was, the whole situation didn't add up. Here we were in a nice little corner of pastoral paradise, hidden away from the rush of society where we could live at our own pace and do as we wished without worrying about alien invaders or SHIELD protocols or tracksuits or the weight of public opinion. It was quiet, it was safe, but something had bugged me from the day that we'd arrived. My first impression of the house had been that it was filled with ghosts. But not ghosts of the departed, mind you – ghosts of possibilities, of what might have been but never came to be and which refused to pass on because someone bid them to remain. To put it another way, this was not the home of a man who was alone and wanted to stay that way. Was this a dress rehearsal of sorts, his way of testing the waters?

It was only then that I realized that I was being watched. I glanced back over my shoulder to see Clint leaning in the doorway with a mug of coffee. “Morning, sunshine,” he said. “Kate told me that you like to hit things, so I was wondering how long it'd take you to come out here.” A sip of coffee. “You've got decent form for a beginner, but there are some parts that could use some work. Mind if I give you a few pointers?”

“By all means, do.” I stepped back from the bag. Clint set the coffee down on his work bench, did a few basic stretches, and then squared off just as I had. _So much for solo think time,_ I silently muttered. _But if someone's gonna teach you how to hit things, you could hardly ask for a better teacher. Just pay attention and don't get distracted..._

“I'm gonna review the basics first.” The dirt floor scuffed under his feet as Clint settled into a ready stance. “You hit right-handed, I've noticed, so right foot back – but not too far. Slight bend in the knees, little bit of a forward lean. And when you're ready to hit...” His fist impacted against the leather with a solid thump, causing the bag to sway and the chains suspending it to creak. “Keep your arm loose until just before you make contact. Watch and learn first, and then we'll practice.”

I hopped up to a perch on the work bench and watched Clint go through his paces. The coffee in the cup that he'd set aside was still hot with just a little bit of sugar to take the edge off and provided a nice bit of refreshment while I made my observations.

Have I mentioned that I'd read his official file when I got transferred to New York? Well, his and those of the other superhero-types known to reside in the city. It had seemed smart as an analyst to know who I might be dealing with, and it made sense in my additional duties for post-event cleanup to know what I might have to fix once all was said and done.

_Barton is the only human member of the Avengers whose abilities are neither granted nor augmented by non-natural means. At first glance, he appears to be little more than a man shaped by his upbringing – born and raised in the Midwest in a family situation summarized as less than idyllic, temporary hearing loss as a youth, orphaned, raised by a traveling circus troupe. But do not let that lull you into dismissing him as insignificant or less than capable. Underneath a simplistic guise of affability and less-than-average intelligence lies the mind of a master assassin, trained by the Swordsman to eliminate his targets with strength and efficiency. The grace and dexterity of an acrobat combined with the pain threshold of a professional fighter make him a foe not to be second-guessed._

_His weaknesses? Few, but easily exploited once discovered. Personal relationships -_

I threw my arm up just in time to deflect a punch that could have knocked my block off if I hadn't been careful. The coffee cup slipped from my hands, only to be caught and set just out of my reach. “Never drop your guard!” Clint caught my half-hearted return punch in one hand and held it there for a moment. “For a moment there, Eo, I could have sworn that you weren't paying attention. Distracted, maybe?”

“What the hell?” I hissed. “I thought you said that I'd get a chance to watch and learn, and then we'd practice.”

A shrug. “We're practicing. I didn't say that you'd get a break in between.”

I gave him a quick look-over. He'd been working hard enough to break a sweat, his shirt dappled with perspiration that caused it to cling to his skin and highlight the contours of muscles underneath. Definitely a nice sight, but not what had diverted my attention. “Is that so.” I placed my other hand firmly on the bench to brace myself and then stretched with a deliberately exaggerated inhalation that I knew from past experience would draw Clint's focus away. Then I quickly drew my knees up, planted my feet in his midsection, and gave a solid shove. It didn't knock him over, but it did cause him to stagger a few steps back and break his grip on my hand. “You were off-balance. Who's the one that's distracted now?” I reclaimed the coffee cup and took another sip, this time letting my gaze deliberately linger.

Clint folded his arms across his chest and tapped his fingers in mock impatience. “Well, let me know when you're finished drinking my coffee so that we can get started.”

Though I'd never witnessed his combat style for myself, I knew as we sparred that if Clint had been working at his full capacity, this fight would have been over in five seconds – ten if I was lucky. Though I'd been trained to fight hard and dirty if backed into a corner, nothing that I knew would keep me safe against someone who had been trained to use their entire body as a weapon. Earlier teasing aside, he now led me through a set of jabs and hooks and uppercuts, feints and blocks, sidesteps and dodges as intricate and intimate as a dance routine. It was all too easy for me to devote a portion of my attention to predicting and countering his movements while allowing the rest of my mind to pick up where it had left off.

_Personal relationships are his primary failing point, although the failure is largely an erroneous self-perception influenced by unfortunate confluences of external factors. That's not to say that he is entirely without fault in these cases. [Note: His divorce was only recently finalized.]_

Remembering that final addendum brought me up short. _Holy crap, that's it. I'm guessing he wasn't the one who asked for the divorce, but he agreed to it probably because he wanted her to be happy – and he's been looking for someone to fill that space ever since. That's why I'm here. He wants to see if there's a chance that we'll work like that -_

Sensing my inattention, Clint snared my feet out from under me and knocked me to the dirt. I pulled him down with me as I fell and only his reflexes prevented him from landing on me with his full weight. We lay there cheek-to-cheek for a long moment until he caught his breath. He then carefully pushed himself up so that he could look down at me with a rueful grin. “You were off-balance. Are we done here, or do you want to go another round?”

It was hard for me to focus right then, not only because of having taken a hard fall onto a packed dirt floor, but also because of who had put me there. _Why did I think that any of this was a good idea? I could be back at my desk in New York, griping at Lowell to stop reading that stupid blog and to send me her notes so that I could finish my slides, dodging my boss' inane questions. But I'm in a barn in the middle of nowhere, lying in the dirt with what might be a concussion and wondering if I have long-term potential with the guy who put me here. Have I gone completely insane?_

“I, uh. I think we're done here. With the lessons, that is.” I accepted a hand up off of the ground, wincing as I stood. “Now I know why every other place I've practiced has floor mats.”

“Pssh, you people and your protective padding. Try growing up with dirt floors and people who are a lot less nice than I am.” There was a flinty edge to his smile that made me shiver a little bit, but it was soon replaced with a look of quiet concern. “You gonna be okay? You look kind of spacey.”

I probed the back of my skull with my fingers for any sore spots or other obvious signs of injury. “Just a little bit rattled, that's all. I took a hard fall.” _Damn right you did. And it started out with him landing on your car._

“I know, I was there.” Clint reached down and ruffled my hair, something that he knew I hated, and grinned when I swatted his hand away. “There we go. I wouldn't want to have to explain that I scrambled the brain that helped save New York. You get dibs on the shower, I'll be there in a few.”

“Okay. Thanks for the pointers.” I stretched up on my toes so that I could kiss him on the cheek and then left the barn, stopping only to pick up the empty coffee cup on my way out.

 --

All good things come to an end, eventually, or that's what common wisdom says. For the first three weeks, it was nice to not worry about things going on in the bigger world. After four weeks, I started getting antsy. At the six-week mark...

“You're doing it again.”

I gave Clint a questioning look over the top of my coffee cup.

“That thing with your fingers. Drumming. Get you out on some open sand and we'd have a worm in ten minutes.”

“I'm not the one who's been fiddling around with that twist tie for the past hour.” I shot a pointed glance at the scrap of wire and plastic that Clint had stolen from the kitchen counter while I'd been making breakfast. “And did you just make a _Dune_ reference?”

“Some people are born nerd, others have nerdiness thrown at them. I don't think I can ever reach your level, but I can at least try. That and I ran out of stuff to read.”

“I was wondering who had been bending the pages in my book.”

“Little bit classier than using toilet paper like you do.” He looked down at the twist tie for a handful of seconds, then back up to me. “You doin' all right?”

“I'm not the one who got turned into an Asgardian psycho's personal Muppet,” I muttered. “You tell me, are you all right?”

“Dunno. Working on it. Not a lot you can do when someone's slimed all over the few good memories that you've got.” The twist tie took on the shape of a triangle, then was bent into a square. “Except try to make some new ones, I guess. Oh, and way to dodge the question.”

“I'm okay. Don't know what I've got that Loki would want to mess with other than a head full of anger issues. And it's not like my anger makes me _do_ anything, sooo...” I nearly spit my beverage when I saw that the corners had been smoothed out of the square, making it into a tidy circle through which Clint was now looking at me. I put the cup down and dabbed the coffee dribble from my mouth with a paper napkin. “I'm guessing he was doing it more to futz with you than anything to do with me. Fits his MO, right?”

“Huh. Guess so.” Clint turned the circle between his fingers a few times, thinking. “You got a medical discharge, right? What for?”

“Chronic pain. Service-related disability.” It took me a few to figure out where he was going with the question. “Wait. What could Loki possibly do with that?”

Shrug. “Dunno. Just spitballing here.” Circle to oval, twisted in half into a figure-eight and then tucked away in the pocket of his flannel. “You want to go home?”

 --

“So nice of you to rejoin us, Agent Foley. How was your vacation?”

I ignored the teasing tone of my cubicle-mate's question as I scrolled down through my emails. “Not a vacation, Lowell. Sabbatical. You've got the Internet – look up the difference.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You somehow managed to con the higher-ups into paying you to go hole up in the mountains or wherever it was with Mind-Control Ken. Pretty slick.”

“Mind-Control Ken? Seriously?”

“I have more. Been saving 'em up.”

“Five thousand, four hundred and forty nine emails? Futz... Sometimes I swear all that people do around here is send emails and create distribution lists for said emails. Either that or reading what everyone else sends them. This is hell.”

“Well, while you were off enjoying a diet of Midwestern free-range beefcake and getting paid for it, the rest of us were actually, you know, working.”

“Uh-huh. I've been gone for two months and you guys are holding this city together with chewing gum and paper clips and hoping that nobody sneezes. Remind me of how that could be called working, because plainly it's not.” My computer chimed as yet another message came in. “Aw, email, no.”

“Yeah, yeah, you made the connection that helped the Avengers figure out what Loki was up to. Let's just see how long you can keep cashing in on that...”

Lowell's comments faded into an annoying drone and then out of my awareness for good when I opened up the newest email in my queue. It was a weekly report about regional events, and from the looks of it, much of it was centered around post-invasion cleanup. Something at the end, though... “Hey, what's this about crimes perpetrated using alien tech?”

“Pretty much what it says on the tin. Just another nasty side-effect of the invasion – opportunists getting their hands on stuff that isn't theirs and using it to do awful things.”

Her casual dismissal had the opposite effect, only stoking my curiosity. I opened up the report and read it in more detail, thinking aloud as I did so. “Victims suffer wounds consistent with patterns from Chitauri weapons discharge. Five deaths so far, no connection between them. The one who managed to escape claimed that she was attacked by an individual bearing crude cybernetic grafts...” I looked back over my shoulder to where my cubicle-mate was, surprisingly, actually engaged in something constructive. “Has anyone checked with the usual suspects on this one? This one stinks of AIM, but it could be Roxxon in a stretch.”

“No manifestos, no public declarations, nothing. It's almost like the big guys feel like they've got to outdo the aliens and they're laying low until they figure something out.”

“Peachy.”

I spent the rest of the day paring down my inbox until it was at a number that didn't scare me so much. I left at my usual time, brain numbed from the digital onslaught, and headed home with the anticipation of spending my evening with some leftovers and some reruns of _Dog Cops._ Maybe a bubble bath, maybe a beer or three, then bedtime – alone, since Clint had been called away to deal with something relating to his 'day job' as soon as we'd returned. He hadn't told me what, and quite frankly it wasn't any of my business. I had a sneaking feeling that it had something to do with the mind control, though, and I cringed to think of the questioning that awaited him regarding that.

That had been three days ago. It took me a while to get used to the city noises once again and, as much as I'd claimed that the quiet of the countryside unnerved me, I found now that I kind of missed it – especially since now it felt like there was someone watching me everywhere that I went. That all-pervasive lack of privacy was one thing that I didn't like about the city.

_Well, he did say that you could go back._ A small voice in the back of my head reminded me of the memory that I'd been trying to push aside since my return. _And from the looks of it, he wouldn't mind –_ I forced that line of thought away. _Don't assume things that aren't there. Wishful thinking doesn't do you any good._

There was a voicemail waiting for me on my phone when I got out to my car. _“Hey, Eowyn. It's Valerie. Listen, I'm getting sent to your neck of the woods for a consultation – mind if I crash on your couch? Oh yeah – my flight gets there at around six at LaGuardia, so if you could pick me up, that would be great. I've gotten used to cabs in DC but I've heard horror stories about cabs in New York. Anyway, see you in a little bit. Bye!”_

As much as I enjoy having Val around, part of me really wasn't ready for the kind of intense personal scrutiny that she'd bring with her. I was also curious as to what exactly she was being summoned up here to consult on, but could guess that it would fall under “need to know” and that I didn't need to know. Grumbling under my breath, I punched the airport into my GPS and set out.


	12. “Oh, she'll remember me, but not for that.” (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A friend comes to visit from DC, and a chance encounter with the Tracksuit Mafia goes badly for Agent Foley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief translation note: "Nichevo" = "Don't worry about it."  
> Also, this chapter ends with a brief nightmare sequence. Stop with "Hay, grease, burnt sugar" if that sort of thing bothers you.

I picked Val up from the airport with almost no hassle. Traffic was its usual mess, but both of us were used to it. It was also nice to see a friendly face after everything that had happened, even though it meant that I was going to have to brace myself for questioning.

“So this is the new and improved Frodo, huh?” I caught her running her fingers over the dash in an overly admiring fashion out of the corner of my eye. “Not like he needed much work to begin with, but damn.”

“I wouldn't get too touchy-feely if I were you,” I said. “I still haven't figured out what all Tony did.”

Val rolled her eyes. “And there you go with the name-dropping. Next thing you're going to tell me that you went out for espressos and mani-pedis with Agent Romanoff.” Pause, side-eye, then, “You haven't done that, have you?”

I laughed. “No, not yet anyway.” This only got me a longer moment of side-eye. “Just remember that they're human just like we are and have all of our shortcomings. Well, except for Thor. He's Asgardian and I can't speak for him.”

“And have you met him?” I shook my head. “Good, because if you did I might just have to hate you for a little bit. And speaking of hating you, I still can't believe that you convinced Steve Rogers to take a selfie with you.”

I shrugged. “You were the one wanting proof that he was there. Ask and ye shall receive.” My phone chimed, informing me that I had a new text. “Open that, would you?”

“And you know that I know your passcode how?” Val made a face at me but did as I asked. “Awww, sweet picture. Hot guy with a cute dog – you hit the jackpot.” She tapped out a pattern on the screen to unlock it, squinted for a moment, then read aloud: “I'll be home tonight, don't worry about walking Lucky. Miss you.” She closed out the message screen and then let out a yelp of alarm. “Is he in the shower? Holy – _abs._ And pecs and hipbones and belly button and... tasteful cropping. Naughty.” I felt my face flame red when I realized what she was talking about. While I kept the lock screen of my phone G-rated in case someone accidentally woke it up, the wallpaper past that lock screen was about fifty pixels short of an NC-17. It's my damn phone, I'd reasoned, and that wasn't the raciest picture I had saved up. Val locked the screen again and put my phone back in the center console. “Ask and ye shall receive, huh? Who'd you ask to get one like that?”

“I didn't,” I muttered, hoping that she would drop the subject. “We met after he broke my windshield by falling on it, remember?”

“Well, in that case, thank heavens for that ass.” Val grinned, said, “But in all seriousness, it's nice to see that you're, er, being taken care of.”

We got to the apartment soon after that. It was a relief to finally get out of my work clothes and into something better for lounging around the house, reminding me once again of how spoiled I'd gotten during my time away. Dinner was simple, and afterward we curled up on the couch with a box of treats from Georgetown Cupcake and choice bits of gossip from our respective workplaces. Bacchus, recognizing a familiar presence, claimed his place on Val's lap and even allowed us a rare, throaty purr of contentment as she stroked his fur.

This idyllic scene was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Give me a minute, I think I know who that is.” Ignoring the sly smirk from my friend, I rose from the couch and went to answer it. Sure enough, it was Clint. I took my time with the locks and chain, trying to get my thoughts in order and to steel my composure so that Val wouldn't get an eyeful of anything inappropriate. “Hey. Before you get too - ”

I was swept up in a possessive embrace, chin tilted, lips captured – a hint of tongue, the move that never failed to make me go weak in the knees as well as to provoke a number of other pleasant sensations. Forgetting that we were being observed, I might have let out a little moan. When we broke for air, the first words out of his mouth were “Is that frosting?”

I licked my lips and realized that some faint trace of sugar yet remained. “Er, yes.” An awkward cough behind us helped me salvage some of my dignity. “Put it on ice for a bit, would you? I was trying to tell you that I have company.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Clint stepped away from me, but not before dropping one final kiss on the crown of my head. He looked past me to where Valerie sat stone-still on the couch, wide-eyed and blushing red. He lifted a hand in a cautious wave. “Hi, I'm Clint. You must be one of Eo's friends.”

I took a moment to smooth down my shirt and my hair and said, “Yes. This is Valerie – she works in the research and development division at the Triskelion. We went to the Academy together and were roommates until I got transferred here.”

“Yes - ” The first word came out in a squeak, and then her voice returned to normal after a vigorous throat-clearing. “Yes, that's me. I've seen- er, heard- so many nice things about you.”

If Clint caught her slip, he didn't say anything. “Likewise. So, are you here just for a social call, or does SHIELD need to pick your brain about something?”

This shifted Valerie back into safe territory conversation-wise – we've always joked about science being her security blanket – and I could almost see her shoulders drop in relief. “They do. Bio-tech is my specialty, and - ” I recognized the look on her face as the abrupt flash of fear that you might have said too much and given something away that you shouldn't have. The context intrigued me, though, and I filed it away for future consideration even as she put on her best fake smile and said, “Sorry, don't want to bore you. Lots of numbers and jargon. Anyway, I'll probably only be here for a few days. Then she's all yours again.” Then, almost as an afterthought, she held out the cardboard box that still had about half a dozen cupcakes in it. “Want one? I brought them with me from DC. Eowyn and I used to get them all the time, and they're pretty good.”

Clint side-glanced me and I could see him run his tongue over the inside of his mouth, no doubt still tasting the vanilla and sugar. “Aw, thanks.” He picked a chocolate cupcake from the box and then made his way back to the door. “I'll leave you ladies to your visit. Let me know if you need anything.”

Valerie sat in silence until the door closed and the sound of Clint's footsteps receding up the stairs faded out of earshot. Then, quietly, “Is he like that all the time?”

I gave her a puzzled look. “Like what?”

“Like... that.” She made a frustrated noise. “I mean, the photo was nice, but in person? I don't mean to sound like a pervert, but that there was kind of hot.”

I got some refreshments out of the fridge and popped the tops off before returning to the couch. Handing one bottle off to Val, I muttered, “I'm sure he'd be flattered.”

Val turned beet red and smacked me on the arm. “Don't you dare!” A long pause, then, “He doesn't have a brother, does he?”

I quickly shook my head. “Oooooh – no no no nonono, you don't want to go there. One brother, but he's a convicted felon and a whole bag of dicks. Or at least that's what I've heard.”

This got a long, defeated sigh, and then a lopsided smile. “Just thought I'd check.”

We were midway through a third episode of _Dog Cops_ when Val realized that she'd forgotten to bring her contact lens solution with her. “There's a drugstore not far from here,” I told her. “We can walk.” She suggested that I call up Clint and ask him to walk with us, just for safety, but in the end it wound up being just the two of us. Maybe it's a good thing that he didn't come with, because I don't know how he would have reacted to what happened on the way back. Wait, scratch that. I know how he would have reacted, so it definitely is a good thing that he wasn't there.

It was almost a nice night out. Warm, not a lot of people around, the air filled with the scents and sounds of the neighborhood quieting down for the evening around us. The beer I'd drank before going out dulled some of the nerves that I felt about walking out after dark. Val took her cues from me and did a pretty damn good job of not acting anxious, though if I knew her well enough I knew that she was twitching on the inside over the prospect of strolling through a strange urban area in the pre-dark hours without some form of personal protection. If I'd been smart, I would have followed her instincts.

In retrospect, I don't envy the guy who got tasked with jumping us on our way back from the drugstore. I could almost imagine the selection process, though I'm not sure if the tracksuits would flip a coin or play rock-paper-scissors. Either way, some poor schmuck got the wonderful job of being the first to experience a new kind of unexpected pain.

We made it to the drugstore without incident. Val got her lens solution, and I picked up a few necessities as well. I won't detail them here; that's not important. What is important, though, is that once again I almost passed right by someone who directly impacted my life and barely noticed their presence until they chose to make themselves seen. And holy crap, how distracted I must have been not to notice another damn tracksuit.

I had my hands full with bags from the store and mumbled a vague apology to the young man as we bumped into each other. _“Nichevo_   _,”_ he said.

This was enough to snap me back into awareness, but not in time to get out of reach. He grabbed me from behind in a strong grip that I'd normally only reserve for intimate acquaintances. My pulse jackhammering in my ears kept me from hearing clearly whatever Val yelled out. _Fight or die,_ I thought. I got enough wiggle room to reach up and pinch him solidly in the crook of his elbow. Though he wore several layers of fabric, my fingers were strong enough to inflict a great deal of unpleasant sensation and he let me go with a howled curse – something about my mom and a goat, maybe. My memory's kind of fuzzy. While he was disoriented, I wasted no time. I whirled, planted my feet for good balance, then gave him the strongest knuckle sandwich that I could muster.

The poor mook (mark your calendars, because I will never use that phrase again) screamed, and for the life of me I was reminded of nothing so much as the death scream of a rabbit. I wasn't feeling too hot myself at that point so I was in no state to do anything when two more tracksuits emerged from a nearby alley and dragged their ally off to safety. They didn't engage me. They barely even looked at me. From what I could see, though, the guy I'd punched would be dealing with a lot more than a busted lip.

Then I passed out.

I was next aware of soft cotton against my skin, the light weight of a blanket covering me, the light aroma of the floral potpourri that I used in my bedroom, and the iron tang of blood in my mouth. Fortunately I hadn't bitten off any of my tongue when I fell unconscious in the street, though I'd grazed up the inside of my cheek pretty good.

“Tell me again what happened.” Clint, tired and worried. If the weight imbalance on the bed was any indication, it was him sitting next to me.

“We were on our way back from the drugstore and this – this guy came out of an alley and just grabbed her.” Valerie, agitated. I could hear her footsteps as she wore a pattern in the carpet with her pacing. “She did some kind of, I don't know, nerve pinch on his arm to get him to let go, and then she spun around and decked him.”

“Good for her.” A comforting touch on my arm. “What happened then?”

“Two more guys came and carried him off. And – and – it looked like he was bleeding pretty badly. Not just from his face, but – everywhere. If I didn't know better, it looked like lacerations from broken glass.” The pacing stopped, if only for a moment. “I don't get it. There wasn't any glass anywhere, and if she only hit him in the face - ” Sigh, then, “That's why I called you and not the police. This sounds like something you'd know about, since you deal with people who have, er...”

“Who have superpowers. That's what you think this is?” A disbelieving laugh. “You, the scientist – you think that she's not normal.”

Valerie snorted. “I could have told you that Eo's not normal even before she went all five-finger death punch on that guy. If this is a power, it's a weird one. And why did it wait until now to show up?”

“Dunno.” Even as groggy as I was, I could tell that Clint was lying – but I was too tired to speak up. Every fiber of me ached, every muscle feeling as if it were made of lead. “You think I should stay here with her?”

“Might not be a bad idea. I'll just go downstairs and give you two some privacy.”

A door closing, footsteps fading out of earshot. The bed creaked under shifting weight. Brief flash of cold as the blanket was twitched aside. I muttered something cranky but subsided when I felt the comforting, solid warmth at my back. He pulled the blanket back over both of us and rested his hand on my upper arm in a silent gesture of reassurance.

 --

Hay, grease, burnt sugar. Whir and chime of machinery, laughter from children and adults alike as well as good-natured noises of disappointment. Garish brightly-colored light that didn't quite hold the shadows at bay. The last time I'd visited the circus had been when I was about ten years old, but my memory had held on to the impressions of the experience quite well if the vividness of this dream was anything to go by.

Funhouse mirrors distorting the images of those passing in front – convex making the reflection short and rotund, concave stretching the spectator into an almost extraterrestrial thinness. My reflection told me that I was younger, perhaps sixteen, still fresh-faced and light-spirited and full of my own invincibility. Each time I stopped to look, I could have sworn that I saw someone in the background watching me. Each time I glanced over my shoulder, there was no one.

Funnel cake with powdered sugar – insubstantial and sweet in my mouth as a kiss. Lemonade, cold and refreshingly tart. I blamed the leftover stickiness on my fingers for affecting my ability to release the trigger on the air rifle in the target shooting booth. The operator, a rangy red-haired young man maybe in his early twenties, laughed. “Better luck next time, darlin'.”

“Don't feel too bad.” The voice at my shoulder made me jump. I turned to see another young man, similar in facial cast to the one who'd laughingly dismissed me, but blond instead of auburn. “My brother likes to mess with everyone. Come by the main tent in about ten minutes and you'll see what real marksmanship is.”

“Yeah right. Maybe you won't skewer anyone this time around.” This snide comment got a single upraised middle finger in response. “In front of a pretty girl? Clint, this is why you don't have any luck with the ladies. You've got to be smooth.”

“Yeah, Barney. You're such a great example.” A long sigh and an exasperated grin aimed my way. “Ten minutes. Say you'll be there.”

I couldn't help a laugh of my own. “How can I say no to a face like that?”

I don't know how long I wandered in this surreal dreamscape, but my path led me to the main tent and a front row seat to the promised spectacle. At first it was standard circus fare: a lone performer throwing knives at targets with increasing degrees of difficulty, culminating with the performer blindfolded and aiming their blades around a partner restrained against a board by means of metal shackles. The knife-thrower was the ruddy-haired snarkster of earlier, his not-target his younger brother. There were the usual close calls, too, but it ultimately ended without accident. The audience cheered and clapped.

“Well, folks, I don't know about you, but I think that knives are just kinda... boring.” Clint rubbed at his wrists where the shackles had chafed, the picture of wounded innocence. “And picking someone you know? Boring, predictable, and easy.”

Gasps and murmurs from the audience. Barney shot a mock-glare at his brother, said, “Okay, then, you think my act is boring? Show me what you got, short stack.”

“You bet I will. If you'd fetch my gear, please? I'll pick my partner.”

Shaking his head, Barney departed briefly. Clint made a show of scanning the audience, pausing here and there for a second before moving on to another candidate. Then he saw me. He grinned and held out his hand. My heart jumped into my throat. “If you wouldn't mind, miss? I promised you a show.”

I got up and allowed myself to be escorted into the ring. My escorts fastened the shackles that held me to the board and then melted back into the shadows, giving me an unobstructed view of the return of Barney with Clint's equipment. A quiver with half a dozen arrows, strapped to his thigh so as not to impede movement. Gloves and a brace for his wrist.

Barney rolled his eyes when he saw me. “You just had to go for the pretty girl, didn't you. At least if you miss, she'll have a scar to remember you by.”

Shocked laughter from the audience. Clint shrugged. “Oh, she'll remember me, but not for that.” He pulled a scrap of purple cloth from his pocket – the perfect size for a blindfold. At first I thought that he was going to use it on himself, but then he walked over to me. He leaned in and bound it around my eyes, the knot just above one of my ears. I could feel his breath on my cheek as he whispered, “Trust me.”

The creak of a bowstring, a quiet exhalation, tension released, _whoosh – thwock_ as the head of the arrow embedded itself just outside of my right knee, not close enough to pierce flesh but enough to pin the cloth of my slacks to the board.

_Whoosh – thwock._ Metal grazed the skin of my hip.

The next shot brushed the tip of my left index finger. After that, the crook of my neck.

A longer than usual silence came between the fourth and fifth shots. I could hear the audience shifting restlessly. _Whoosh – thwock._ The arrow brushed my temple, then lodged in the knot tied above my ear. The fabric stretched, the knot loosened, and the blindfold fell away. I could feel the warm sting left in the path of the barb. Blood trickled down onto my cheek.

One arrow remained in the quiver.

Inhale. Tension. Exhale. Release. _Whoosh._

I couldn't run. None of the tricks I'd learned could get me loose from the shackles, not in time to escape.

_Thud._

Darkness.

 --

“Eo? Wake up, you're having a nightmare - ”

I came to suddenly and sat up, drenched in my own sweat. The stabbing pain in my chest was still there, and it took a few seconds to convince myself that I didn't have the shaft of an arrow sticking out from the flesh. Nausea overtook me. It would take too long to get to the bathroom, so I made do with the garbage can next to my bed.

“Yeah, I think you might want to call in sick today.”


	13. "...y'all's Bluff skills suck." (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What to do when your girlfriend develops creepy superpowers" isn't exactly the kind of thing you can Google, is it.

I was in the middle of my third beer that night and thinking about going to bed when I got a call from Eo on my cell phone. Or, at least it was her number. I didn't expect to hear her friend Valerie freaking out on the other end of the line. I calmed her down enough to get a story from her about Eo pounding the crap out of someone and then passing out afterward, figured out where they were, and went to help bring Eo back to her apartment before someone called the authorities. She had no visible injuries, at least none that would be made worse by her being moved around, so we did our best to get her cleaned up and into pajamas and then tucked into bed.

After getting what information I could out of Valerie, I thought it would probably be best if I stayed there overnight in case there were any further complications. And even though part of me thought it was foolish to be in any kind of physical contact, the rest of me figured that at least a light touch wouldn't hurt to remind her that I was there and cared. I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was feeling – if what Valerie was saying was actually true and Eo had developed some kind of freaky power that involved transferring injury, that couldn't be pleasant.

But even though Eo looked like she was resting comfortably, I couldn't sleep well. I knew deep down in my gut that Loki had something to do with this, and that when he had grabbed her arm he'd used that contact to dig deeper and set off something that could have just as easily stayed dormant. _Imagine what it will be like when she finally allows herself to scream._ Not gonna lie – that had scared the shit out of me. I know a thing or two about anger that's been buried for too long, and now that I thought about it, the way that he'd said it had been a dead giveaway for what he had in mind. I'd brought him right to her, I couldn't keep him from messing with her head -

_Shut up, Clint._ The fact that I heard this in Eo's voice made me snort a little bit. I wasn't doing either of us any good by worrying, so I did my best to push the doubts out of my mind so that I could sleep too.

Morning eventually came. I woke up when Eo started thrashing around and muttering, and unless I was wrong, it sounded like she was saying my name. I tried to snap her out of it, but I didn't need to. Whatever it was, it ended and she sat up gasping in terror with one hand on her chest. She looked down like maybe she thought she'd been stabbed, then looked over at me with an expression of total fear that I'd hoped never to see on her face. Then she went pale, lurched out of bed, took a few steps, and hurled into the garbage can.

She didn't need any convincing to call in sick to work that day, and I sent Valerie off with a promise that I'd keep an eye on Eo and make sure that nothing else happened. Then I went back upstairs to my apartment to take a shower and try to process the events of the night before. The longer I thought about it, the more it seemed like a really bad idea to let anyone in authority know about it. I didn't know exactly what would happen to Eo if I told her employers that she had gone powered, but I had a strong suspicion that it would be very unpleasant. _What do mortals do with things they can neither comprehend nor control?_ Loki had posed this question once we were on our way out of the city, and not-me didn't have a good answer. _Simple. Label it, hide it, put it in a box... Or bury it. Pray it's one of the first._

As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point. And I wasn't about to let them bury her.

You can find answers to just about any question on the Internet. Even someone as dumb as me knows that. But even I know that there's no answer to the question that I had to deal with that morning – what to do when someone you're close to suddenly develops weird superpowers. Even worse, the people who might have had some clue of what to do were the people that I couldn't trust not to run to SHIELD. So what did I do? The only thing that made sense – to try to take care of her and make her as comfortable as possible while her body sorted out its newfound issues. Well, that and thank my limited luck that her abilities didn't include anything that could burn my building down.

Only problem with deciding to be caring and supportive? I had no clue in hell how to do it. So, after checking in with Eo to see if there was anything that she wanted – I got a feverish mumble about poodles on Mars – I then called the one person who is better at being me than I am.

Kate was her usual pleasant, kind, forgiving self. _“Nice to see that you haven't busted this phone yet. What's up?”_

“Just need some advice.”

_“For the last time, Clint – separate darks from brights in the laundry, don't lick batteries, I before E except after C, beer is bad for the dog, and no, I can't tell you where you left your keys.”_ Pause, then, _“Or is this dealing-with-girls advice? In that case, her butt never looks big in those jeans, stop stealing the blankets, and let her pick what you watch on TV every now and then. Does that cover it?”_

I rolled my eyes. “All good to know, I'm sure, but no. What are some good things to get someone who's stuck at home sick?”

“ _Depends on what kind of sick it is. If it's contagious, the best thing to give them is their space.”_

“Fatigue, puking – that kind of stuff. And no, it's not contagious. Not that I know of, anyway.”

Kate gasped. _“Waaaait – are you trying to tell me – is she - ”_

I realized where Kate was going with this right before she could finish the sentence. “No. No, she's not.”

“ _Awwww. You sounded so flustered there for a moment. Did I touch a nerve?”_

“No. We just haven't had that talk yet. Or any of the others that usually happen before it, anyway. No, she's just sick, and I'm trying to be a decent person and take care of her.”

“ _Bummer. Looks like I'll have to put off buying that 'My Aunt is the Best' onesie for later.”_ I could almost hear the gears in Kate's brain grinding to a stop as she caught the second part of what I'd just said. _“Did you just say that you're trying to... take care of her? Like something that an actual boyfriend would do?”_

“Yeah, I guess.” A long silence followed my reply, and I muttered, “Laugh if you want, Katie. I'm trying my best here.”

_“I know you are, and I'm not laughing. You're finally showing that you're serious about someone for once, that's all. It's a good look on you.”_

“Oh. Uh, thanks.” The lack of snark startled me and I had to stop for a minute and think about why I'd called in the first place. “So, what should I bring back?”

 --

It took Eo a moment to answer the door when I knocked. When she did, I saw that she'd done her best to clean herself up while I was gone – but she still looked as worn out then as she had when I'd left. She offered me a tired smile and then returned to her spot on the couch and whatever she'd been watching on TV. This gave me a few minutes to put things away in her kitchen. I opened up a can of ginger ale, poured it into a cup and added a straw, then took it and a pack of saltines out to the living room. Then I saw what she was watching. “I thought you said that you didn't watch _Dog Cops_.”

Eo shifted to give me some room on the couch, taking the soda and the crackers and then leaning up against me once I'd gotten comfortable. She sipped at the ginger ale with an appreciative murmur, then said, “I didn't. But I heard you talking about it, so I was curious. I'm on season three now.”

“Yeah, the writing kinda took a dump in this season. But hang on, it'll get better. Next season, when Captain Beagle - ”

Eo gave me a weak smack on the arm and hissed, “Hey, dummy, spoilers!”

I laughed a little, said, “Right. Sorry.”

We watched the show for a while without talking. It's not awards material and the whole concept is kinda hokey, but I could tell that she needed a laugh. I was also happy to hear her laughing, even that low-energy deflated kind of laugh that she was doing, because that meant that she was on the mend. When it cut to one of those long blocks of commercials, she muted it and looked up at me. “Thanks for being so good about this.”

“You think I'm doing good? Heh.”

She made a face at me. “Yeah, I do. Maybe it's because this kind of thing is normal for you, but you're just rolling with it. Other – people – I know would have run like their tail was on fire.” I caught the way that she hesitated and the quick look away from me when she said _people_ and it didn't take two brain cells to figure out who she meant. “But you come back with ginger ale and crackers and let me hang all over you while we're watching TV, even though touching other people is probably the worst idea for me right now.” Eo turned pale and sat up and away from me, one hand going up over her mouth. “Oh my god. I didn't even think about it. I'm not hurting you, am I?”

“No, you're not. And even if you were, I think I could take it.” She didn't look convinced. “Does hanging all over me make you feel better?” A tiny nod. “Then do it. I don't mind.”

Eo hesitated for a few seconds more, then sighed – not an angry sigh or a sad one, but relieved. Then she scooted closer and draped herself over me like she usually does, legs over my lap, one arm behind my neck, other arm over my stomach, head resting on my shoulder. “S'this all right?”

Okay, so maybe not my most brilliant move. Add it to the list. I could feel the pain soaking into me the moment that her skin touched mine – a whole-body ache, like the flu times a thousand – and then I figured out that this was probably every day for her, if not worse. So I kissed her on the forehead and said, “Yeah.”

She smiled, again more something of relief than anything else, and then unmuted the television just in time for the commercials to end.

It wasn't long before she fell asleep on my chest, and watching her snooze reminded me of how tired I was. That and she has a damn comfy couch. Next thing I knew it was five in the evening and the door was opening and Valerie was back with a couple of brown paper bags of takeout. The smell of fresh, scratch-made chicken soup is what woke me up, and I lifted my head up from the back of the couch to see Valerie puttering around in the kitchen. “Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up. I just thought she might want some comfort food, and one of the gals in the R&D department here knew of a good place...” She paused with her hand on one of the cabinets. “There's enough here for all of us if you want to stay.”

Growing up like I did, I'm not one to pass on free food. But I still have a little bit of what passes for manners, so I shrugged. “You sure? I can guess you two don't get to see each other a lot, and I don't want to hog your time for visiting.”

“And your 'day job' could mean that you're called away tomorrow. Choice is yours.”

I didn't want to admit it, but she was right. “You don't need to tell me twice.” I then gave Eo a careful nudge. She'd somehow managed to sleep through her friend's return and through the tasty food smells too, and only the warmth of her breath on my chest as she exhaled gave me any clue that she was still alive. “Rise and shine, beauty queen.”

Eo woke up with a half-snore that made it sound like she'd accidentally inhaled the dangly bit at the back of her mouth. She blinked a few times and sat up, rubbing out a crick in her neck. “Good gracious. I must've really passed out there.”

“Looks like you needed it, though.” Valerie began divvying up the soup. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Had some good company, watched some TV...” She gave me a quick peck on the cheek – and just like she'd flipped a switch, all of the pain that I'd felt from her was gone. “Let me go and tidy myself up. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Valerie made herself busy fussing with filling up the teapot while Eo gathered up a fresh change of clothes and then made her way slowly but steadily back to the bathroom. I kept an eye on Eo to make sure that she didn't stumble, but it made me worry a little less to see that she really didn't need my help. The bathroom door closed and Valerie waited until she heard the water running before speaking up. “Do you really think it's a good idea to let her touch you right now?”

“Good idea? Nah. On the top ten list of bad ideas, this one's probably about number five.”

Valerie raised her eyebrow at me. “Really. Dare I ask what's worse than being in close physical contact with a person whose power is to transmit injury by touch?”

“Nope.”

I could tell that she expected me to spill if she stared at me long enough. But she obviously didn't know me well, and after about a minute she sighed and gave up. “Fine. Be that way. But puzzle me this, then - why did her attacker show lacerations from broken glass when there was no glass around? Also, who were those people and what did they want with her? It looked like a targeted attack.” A sudden frown, then, “If it was an attack, then they would have just kept hitting her until she was down for good... and then they would have gone after me. This wasn't an attack - it was a test.”

“You mean that the Tracksuit Draculas know about Eo's powers?” Valerie snorted, and I shrugged. “Just what we call 'em around here. And yeah, they're a regular thing. Worse than roaches, I tell ya.” The questioning look returned, and this time I didn't have any issue with clarifying. “Mafia of some kind, Russian, Polish, used to own this building. I bought it out from them so they'd stop hassling the residents. Things got ugly.”

“Something tells me that's the understatement of the year, but I'll leave it at that. What about the broken glass?”

“Eo's probably told you about how we met, right? It'll be one hell of a story for the kids. I was doing a final walkthrough of this place before she signed her lease when I got jumped by some of the suits. They tossed me out the door, and I don't mean the front door. Broken glass. I hit the railing, then flipped over it and landed on her windshield. More broken glass.”

Something that I said made Valerie smile, but I wasn't sure what and I wasn't about to ask. “You shouldn't have even been able to walk after that, but I'm guessing you did. That means another thing - she absorbs injury passively, like a solar panel, but transfers it at will. Touch to transmit, but none needed to gather. Curiouser and curiouser.”

“Yeah.” I could almost see the wheels turning in her mind and I didn't like it at all. “Tell me you aren't going to report her.”

Valerie blinked. “To whom? And what would I gain from seeing my friend subjected to whatever they have in mind? In the very least they'll detain and interrogate her. Next step after that, she becomes a lab rat. After that...” She shook her head. “No. Even if she weren't my friend, she's not a monster. If anyone turns her in, it won't be me.”

Eo hadn't told me exactly what part of R&D that Valerie works in and it hadn't occurred to me to ask – but I put two and two together at that point and figured out that she would have a better idea of the real consequences than I would. It also made me wonder just what she'd been called up here to consult on that SHIELD's local people wouldn't know about.

I didn't get a chance to dig deeper, though, since at that point the bathroom door opened and Eo came out. She noticed the awkward silence hanging in the air and stopped in her tracks. “What're you two talking about?”

You know how in tight situations like this, the two people in the know can usually come up with a good lie that makes the person asking the questions less suspicious? This wasn't one of those times. I shot a glance over at Valerie who had turned white as a sheet. “Entropy,” she said.

“Skinny jeans,” I said.

Eo's eyes narrowed. She looked up to the top of the bookcase to where Bacchus usually sat, though I'm not sure how her cat could have told her anything more. The cat, for his part, had twisted up into one of those strange poses unique to his species and was licking the base of his tail – a clear _No comment._

“You might want to put some points into Charisma at your next available opportunity,” Eo grumbled, “because y'all's Bluff skills suck.”

Valerie recovered more quickly than I could. “Not fair. I got a -5 penalty because I'm your friend. Clint gets a -15 because he was thinking about what you looked like in the shower.” She shot me a sharp look that dared me to argue. I could only shrug. “Now come on, the soup's getting cold.”

 


	14. "Are you making me work on my lunch break?” (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graceful de-escalation is not Clint's forte.

“ _Remind me of why they didn't just let me do this by myself? And, even more, why they made me work with you?”_

“Because you're too young to be out of the house without a chaperone, that's why.”

“ _Har, har. That joke never gets old with you, does it.”_

Being the model of restraint that I am, I resisted the urge to make a further joke about 'getting old.' I'm a saint, I tell you. “Just remember, this is a basic data recovery mission. We're looking for - ”

“ _Organizational structure, development facilities... yeah, yeah. Basically anything that'll tell us where our hybrid cyber-freaks are coming from. Again, why are you even here?”_

I shrugged even though I knew Kate couldn't see me do it. “Tech support, I guess?”

“ _Uh-huh. Have you even figured out how to use the new gear?”_

By “new gear,” Kate meant the improved shades that Tony had cooked up for me on one of his breaks in between not going to meetings. My eyesight is damn near perfect – I'd be a lousy excuse for a marksman if it wasn't – but our resident bored genius leader had taken it on himself to give me a boost. Night vision, a few other nifty filters, and other settings that I could adjust as needed through controls on the stems. Sounds great in theory, right? Except I couldn't get the damn things to work. And I really needed them to work since I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Kate from the vacant office space across the street from our target. Better vantage point just looking through a window than trying to work the whole rooftop angle...

“ _I'm guessing that long silence means 'no.' I'd tell you to just Google it, but you don't even have a smartphone, do you?”_

“I do too have a smartphone. Got one of those OtterBox things for it.” I finally figured out the control combination that I was looking for, and about time too. _Note to self: Get a user's manual for these things once you get done._ “Got you in my sights now. Do what you do.”

“ _Watch and learn.”_

I was about to argue that I really couldn't, but I knew that would only distract her. So I made myself as comfortable as I could, thankful that the office I lurked in now had good old-fashioned windows that slid up and down instead of that slick chrome-looking crap that I was looking at across the street. One less thing to worry about if I did have to take a shot, and the breeze was nice too when I could get it. Weather was good for late August, and my attention began to wander. _Mets are doing their usual, so it shouldn't be too hard to get tickets to a game. I know Eo likes baseball..._

“ _Clint! Trouble.”_

Kate's hissed warning got my attention back to here and now. “What kind- ”

“ _I tried to be careful, but I think I set off an alarm – I don't like the looks of this - ”_

Just then I caught a flicker of something on my peripheral vision, some weird signal on the same floor as Kate, not warm enough to give a good reading. “Kate, get out of there.”

“ _You think I'm not trying? I think they set this place to blow - ”_ static _“- get rid of the evidence. Wait- ”_

The window across the street exploded outward with a crash, broken by an office chair similar to the one I'd been sitting in up until a moment earlier. Kate followed a few seconds after the chair. She dropped three stories and landed on the hood of a car parked on the street below, and I muttered a sympathetic “ow ow ow” in memory of similar things in my all-too-recent past. Then I got a good look through the jagged hole in the glass at the thing that had caused the weird reading. “What the futz...”

It looked human, I guess, or at least it had been recently. I also recognized – and really wish I didn't recognize – bits of what looked like parts from our alien buddies grafted right into the host. Mean, ugly, angry... “And soon to be dead,” I muttered. Didn't look like a regular old garden-variety arrow would take it down, so I went for something stronger. It was an easy shot, too, since even though the thing looked strong it sure as hell didn't seem very smart – at least, not smart enough to take cover.

An explosive arrow was the first that came to hand, so that's what I went with. Perfect shot, of course. Boom.

You know how I mentioned my love of ziplines earlier? They're handy for getting places if you're in a hurry, and after making sure that the freak hadn't brought backup I made good use of that open window to get down to street level so that I could check on Kate... who, as it turned out, was just fine, minus a few bumps and bruises. She'd rolled off of the hood of the car and taken cover behind the wheel well. “I thought you said the place was supposed to explode. What're you still doing here?”

Kate gave me a flat look of disbelief. “You're asking me that while you're right next to me?” A sigh. “That's what the error message of doom said. I didn't get a chance to look into it because that's when the death-bot showed up. Either way I wasn't sticking around, and we probably shouldn't either.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

We heel-toed it away from that particular block and did our best to make sure that anyone we saw in the area did the same. It was only when I felt a vibration in one of my pockets that I remembered an appointment that I'd made. “Got a call coming in. Take over the bystander herding duties for now, would you?” Kate rolled her eyes but didn't argue, and I fished the phone out so that I could answer. “Heya, babe. In case you're calling about our meetup, no, I didn't forget.”

Long-ish pause, then, _“Did you just call me 'babe'?”_

“You know, image and stuff like that. Did you pick up the coffee?”

“ _Yeah. Two cups of 'blacker than the pits of hell and just as hot,' one large for you and one small for Kate. No, you didn't mention that she'd be there, but I made an educated guess.”_ 'Educated guess' was Eo-speak for 'stuff that I can't tell you because you don't need to know,' namely stuff from her fancy office that I'd never get access to. _“And a large coconut mocha with extra whip for me, because I value what's left of my stomach lining.”_

“Chicken,” I muttered. “You were in the navy for how long? Shouldn't your stomach lining be bulletproof - ”

A loud _whump_ and a crash could be heard in the distance, followed by the shrieks of car alarms. _“What the hell was that?”_

“Nothing, dear.”

“ _Clinton Francis, don't you dare 'nothing, dear' me. I know an explosion when I hear it. Are you making me work on my lunch break?”_

I heaved a silent sigh of relief. First name, middle name meant that I was still sort of on safe ground. “Wouldn’t dream of it. What's your ETA?”

“ _Two minutes. See you soon.”_

Eo was sitting on a bench when I got there, coffee tray at her side. The few people that passed in front of her gave her a wide space, pretty rare in this city – probably due to the combination of sharp suit and dark glasses and the attitude of watching everyone and everything. I noticed her because of the way the suit looked on her, tailored to remind the viewer of the body underneath it but not in a way that was immodest or suggestive. She saw me and gave me the smallest smile. _Be casual, people are watching,_ I told myself. _Casual, casual, casual._

She set her coffee back on the carrier tray long enough to give me one of those awkward acquaintance half-hugs when I sat down next to her. I could smell her perfume. Vanilla with a hint of spice, nothing strong, just enough to get my attention. “Are you telling yourself to be casual?” she asked.

“I'm on the clock, so yeah.” She handed me the one large coffee without a lipstick mark on the lid. We tapped the cups together in a toast and then both took a long drink. Eo returned to watching people pass by, and I watched her do it out of the corner of my eye. “So I think things went pretty well today.”

“Other than the explosion?” Eo looked at me without turning her head, and I quickly looked away so that she wouldn't know I'd been watching her. “You smell like smoke, too, so there must have been more than one.”

“I might have had to - ”

The beginning of a sigh.

“But there was this cyborg kind of thing - ” This got her to look at me fully, and I didn't need her to say it in order to guess what she meant with that look. _Shut up, dummy. There are people around._ “I was trying to keep it away from Kate, that's all. Might've gone overboard.”

The sigh returned, along with a muttered something I was used to hearing but hadn't yet from her: “Dammit, Clint.” First time for everything, right?

I nudged her with my knee. “Aw, don't be like that. You know that I'm a joy and a pleasure to be around.” This brought the smile back and, if I wasn't seeing things, a blush along with it. “That's more like it. And you know I'm just trying to help you out. Save you some work by letting you see what's going on firsthand.”

“I think you mistake the function of my office, Hawkeye.” Back to my codename? Futz. “Our business is inspections and permits and coordination with civilian agencies, not waltzing in after you blow things up and brain-zapping everyone and coming up with a clever story to explain the boom.”

“You mean you don't have a neuralyzer in your suit pocket?” Eo snorted but didn't reply. “Too bad. I'd love to see you tell someone it was just swamp gas from a weather balloon  trapped in a thermal pocket and reflecting the light from Venus.” That one got me a glasses-lowered, _you've got to be shitting me, son_ stare. “Come on, Agent Foley, that was funny. Do you leave your sense of humor at home when you go to work?”

“That's not the only thing I sometimes leave at home.” This was pitched almost too low for me to hear, and I nearly spat my coffee. Eo, stone-faced, noted my reaction and added, “I was talking about my lanyard. What did you think I was talking about?”

“Uh.”

I was given more time to stumble around for an appropriate response by the arrival of Kate. She looked at both of us, made a face, and grumbled, “I give you two some privacy for a few minutes so you can talk and this is what I get? Ugh, I feel like I just walked in on my parents.”

“Hello to you too, Kate.” Eo said. I was still trying to fish my brain out of the gutter, and I both loved and hated her for being so effective at distracting me. “That last coffee's for you, and take your pick of the pastries from the bag. I figured a snack might be appreciated.”

“You brought food and didn't let me have first dibs?” It was my turn to lower my voice so that passersby couldn't hear. “You are so gonna get it later.”

Eo, ever the stoic not-so-secret agent, simply raised an eyebrow and muttered back, “Bring it, chooch .”

“You bet I will, with an extra helping of - ”

My super-smooth comeback was cut off by a disgusted noise from Kate. “Seriously, you two? I'm standing right here.”

I took what was left from the food selection – some kind of scone – and took a bite. It sucked almost all of the moisture up out of my mouth and I had to take a quick swig of coffee before talking again. “What's the matter, Katie-Kate? Jealous?”

Kate shrugged. “Not really. Kind of happy that you're flirting with someone not, you know, skanky and criminal.”

I opened my mouth to argue but realized I really couldn't. “I'd have to be blind or dead not to want to try my luck.” Kate looked unconvinced. “Cut me some slack, all right? It's a healthy normal male reaction to seeing a gorgeous woman in a well-cut suit like Agent Foley here.”

“Of the three, you aren't two of them.” My protege wolfed down the rest of her croissant and licked her fingers. “The three options being healthy, normal, and male, in case you weren't tracking.”

“Definitely a guy, last time I checked anyway. I can get a second opinion if you need one.” I looked over at Eo, who was very pointedly not looking at either Kate or me.

“Depends on how biased the source is,” Kate replied.

Eo sighed. “When you two break up, who gets the dog?” She glanced down at her watch, then got up from the bench and smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt in a motion that only drew attention to how well it showed off her - uh, assets. “Not that it hasn’t been scintillating conversation, but I need to get back to the office. Pleasure as always, Hawkeyes.”

“Thanks for the fuel, Agent.” Kate lifted her cup in a salute. “Hopefully the vultures won't be too mean.”

“These days I barely even notice.” Eo returned the salute, then walked away without so much as a backward glance. Not like I really noticed that. She's as sweet of a sight when she leaves as when she shows up and it was hard for me not to let my mind wander again.

“What a nice lady,” Kate said. “Is she going to be my new mom?”

I almost choked on my coffee. “What the hell, Kate?”

“It's a good thing you've got those shades on or else this entire street would've been able to see the heart eyes you were making at her this whole time. You're a lousy faker, Clint - ” She saw me start to talk and glared me into shutting up. “And don't tell me that's what she said. That doesn't even work.”

I snorted. “I thought I was doing pretty good.”

“Please. Even the half-blind squirrel three trees away from here could see that you two are a thing. Let's go, already – or does the old man need to rest a little more?”

“Tch. I could go all day – and all night.”

“Ew.”

 --

“This information's incomplete, obviously, but it's a start.” Kate flicked the USB drive across the table to Tony. “I only got so far before the death-bot came after me. Well, that and the whole building's-gonna-blow-up thing, but the death-bot was my more immediate concern.”

“A death-bot which I got rid of, for what it's worth.”

My contribution was ignored for the moment. You'd think I'd be upset, but I was sadly used to it by now. Tony turned the drive over between his fingers. “And you said the place blew up?”

“Just the important parts. And what's left is no doubt being picked over by SHIELD.” Kate shrugged. “Sorry. I did what I could – which is a lot more than what this guy probably would have gotten you.”

That got to me. “Hey! You wouldn't have known about the T-1000 in the broom closet if I hadn't warned you.”

“Once you got your new super-shades working,” Kate shot back. “If you hadn't gotten lucky, I would have been SOL.” She turned back to Tony and Steve, said, “Did you know that he only just figured out how to program his DVR last week?”

Steve saved me from further death-by-snarky-preteen with a polite cough. “To be fair, those things are kind of tricky. You can go now, Kate, if you don't have anything else to add.”

“Nope, I'm good. Time for a nice, hot shower and then a nap.” She gave me a critical look before turning to leave, then said, “You could use one. A shower, that is. Charred death-bot is not a good smell.”

Tony and Steve had a short, hushed exchange while Kate was saying this, and once she was gone I realized that they were looking at me expectantly. “Do you need anything else from me, or can I go too?”

Steve nudged a chair out with his foot. “Have a seat for a minute.” My face must have given away my silent _oh, what now?_ because he chuckled and added, “Don't worry, you're not being grounded.”

I sat down and crossed my arms across my chest. “If I'm not in trouble, then what's this about?”

“We've just got a few questions, that's all. Some pictures came up that got us curious.” Tony passed a folder over to Steve, who opened it and skimmed through the contents. “Some good shots of you in here. And hey, isn't that your neighbor? The one with the clogged sink?”

Tony glanced over at the photos. “Oh, her? You mean the one whose car I fixed? I thought that face looked familiar.”

Shuffle to another photo. “Oof, the whole awkward friend-hug. Never good news. But wait – did she bring you coffee?” Steve spun the pile of photos around so that I could see them. The one on top showed Eo sipping from her cup while I grinned at her like a smitten schoolkid.

“We managed to snag these from Peter before he tried to get them published, by the way,” Tony said. “He wanted to add a caption, something like 'Arrowed Avenger Collaborates with Sexy SHIELD Suit Over Afternoon Joe.' Cute, but not the image that we're looking for.”

I added another entry to my growing list of mental notes, this one to have a chat with our web-slinging photog about the meaning of privacy. “Yeah, she brought me coffee – and one for Kate, too. She was just being nice.”

“Gotta kinda wonder why she was there in the first place, though.” Tony sat back in his chair and gave me that expectant look again. “I know it's her job to facilitate post-event cleanup, or at least that's what her office does, but it looks to me like you're trying to sneak time with your lady-friend while you're on the clock. And while I'm sure she's more than capable of handling herself...” Maybe it was just me, but I thought I heard him pause after that for a moment and the reason for that pause made me squirm a little in my seat. “...I'm sure that her employers would be down our throats if we got one of theirs hurt on an unsanctioned excursion.”

“And it's not like you don't see her when you get home.” Steve gathered up the photos and closed the folder. “No need to take unnecessary risks.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Guilty as charged. What do you want me to do now, write a letter to Nick Fury apologizing for borrowing one of his agents so that I can help her do her job?” My comment to Eo about her work had been sort of a joke, but I'd thought about it on the way back to the tower and this seemed as good a time as any to bring it up. “Come to think of it, why don't we have some kind of a liaison with her office? It would make things a lot easier if they had eyes in the field.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Nice try, but - ”

Steve held up his hand to stall Tony. “Back off a little. He has a point.”

Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut in what looked like the beginning of a headache. “Just what I want, more oversight...” He grumbled something else that was just under my earshot, then looked back up at me and said, “Fine, I'll think about it. But in the meantime, stop bringing your girlfriend along while you're at work. I'm sure she'll agree with me that there are nicer places for you to meet up.”

“I'd have to agree with him there.” Steve passed the folder of photos over to me. “Just for your peace of mind. Any questions for us?”

I leaned back in my seat and thought for a minute. “Yeah. What does 'scintillating' mean?”

 --

“Aw, you remembered!”

“The florist kinda looked at me funny when I told 'em I wanted peach roses instead of red, but since I help them pay the rent...” There was no lie there. “Sorry I ran a little late tonight. Had to take Kate to get checked out, and then got the riot act read to me for taking you with me to work.”

Eo looked up from trimming the stems on the last of the roses. “Yeah, about that.” I cringed. “Apparently my boss got a call from higher up suggesting that I get put on special assignment to work with your people.”

I tried my best to look innocent. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. He doesn't like the idea of losing one of his best analysts, or so he said, so he's dragging his feet on it. Don't get too excited.” She finished arranging the flowers and stood back to admire her work. “Of course my cubicle-mate gave me a whole ration of crap for the idea that I might be getting paid to be a cape-chaser.”

“Cape-chaser? That doesn't sound very flattering.”

“It's not.” Eo shrugged. “But like I told Kate, I barely even notice anymore. I think half of them are just jealous.”

“Could be. Oh, almost forgot!” I fished the latest addition to the rock collection out of my pocket and handed it to Eo for her approval. “Picked this out for you on my way home tonight.”

Eo took it and held it up to the light. “Hate to break it to you, hon, but this is a piece of asphalt.”

“A piece of asphalt from your favorite piece of ass?”

This got me a long side-eye. “Yeah, and it’s your ass’ fault that I needed my windshield replaced.”

“Ass’ fault… asphalt… heh. I see what you did there.”

A small smile. “And speaking of, did you know that your ass has its own fan page on Facebook? My cubicle-mate was so nice as to point it out to me. I told her that I didn’t need a fan page when I have access to the real thing.”

“My ass has a fan page?” I couldn't resist twisting to look back. “Nice.” When I looked up again, I saw that the smile had grown – _god, you're such a dork,_ it said, _but I like it_ – and I gave her a lame grin back. “So, uh, I'm sorry about today. I know you like to keep work and personal life separate.”

Eo shrugged. “It was bound to happen sooner or later, considering who you are and who I am.”

She was right, I knew, but that didn't stop me from feeling guilty over it. “I know. It was a dick move on my part, though.” I took in a deep breath, let it back out again. “I've already gotten you hurt once in a way that can't ever be fixed. I don't want to take away the one thing that's going right for you.”

_Mistaaaaake..._   I mentally smacked myself in the forehead as I saw Eo's eyes narrow and the muscles in her jaw tighten. “Hold up now,” she said. Her voice was calm, too calm, that scary level tone that lets me know that I’d better walk careful. “The one thing that’s going right for me?”

“You know, your job. Work. You said yourself that you're the best they've got.”

_Wrong move, Hawkeye._

Eo straightened up suddenly like someone had jabbed her in the ass with a thumbtack, and she looked just about as pissed off. “Let me get this straight. I've gone from working for a shady government agency in one pretentious bass-ackwards city to working for a shady quasi-government agency in another pretentious bass-ackwards city, and I'm living in a building where I'm just as likely to be jumped by Russian mobsters as I am to find a working washing machine. Speaking of, you know who called in the last repair order? I did, you're welcome.” She took a breath but I knew that she wasn't finished yet. “My best friend rarely talks to me anymore and I'm afraid that she thinks I'm some kind of freak. And to top it all off, some anonymous jackass clipped the article in the society section of The Washington Post about my ex-boyfriend's wedding to some uppity vanilla wafer with even more money than him and mailed it to me.” Her fists clenched, her knuckles whitening. “But you know what makes all of this shit tolerable? Knowing that I can come home and sit on the couch in my pajamas with you and watch crap television and not be judged. Tell me again what the one thing is that's going right in my life.”

If I'd had a lick of sense, I would have seen my mistake and stopped things from going from bad to ugly. But me? Sense? I wouldn't know the animal if it bit me in the leg. “The only reason you have to deal with the Draculas is because you stuck around when I told you to get out of here!”

“What, and running is always the best idea?”

“Sometimes it is, yeah.”

“And I suppose you'd know!” She couldn't have hit me harder if she'd slapped me in the face. “I've read your file and I know your history. If it hadn't been for Kate, you would have run away from here too. Running is all you do!”

“And you stay put, even when it could get you killed. Who's the smarter one here?” I was fed up. I'd had enough of this crap – tried to apologize, and now this? What the actual futz? So I did the only thing that made sense. I headed for the door.

“So what, you're running now too? Go to _hell_ , Clint.”

Those were the last words I heard before I slammed the door closed behind me.

 --

Not like you needed it, but that right there is further proof that I am a motherfutzing idiot. I could have gone for the graceful de-escalation – but I, the ever-unchanging Clinton Francis “back in a sex” Barton who is great at boats and loves him some boomerang arrows, do not do graceful de-escalation. Hell, back then I couldn't have even told you what that word meant.

I have a dictionary now, and a wife. (Different one than the first.) But I'm still an idiot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the first mention of the Facebook fan page for Clint's ass. If you'd read the tags, you'd have known this was coming. Also, I couldn't resist the Men in Black reference.


	15. “I'd pick the scars any day.” (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Foley accepts a transfer from Logistics and Post-Event Cleanup and moves to an office with a view. However, working directly for the Avengers soon proves to be more dangerous than even she could have anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psychological and body horror in this chapter. Guess it's time to start earning that archive warning...

I took the job. Who am I kidding? Once they got the hazard pay and the rest of the benefits package worked out, I would have been an idiot not to. Never mind that I'd just had one of the worst arguments of my adult life with the person who'd gotten the wheels set in motion, or that I had to trade my office attire for a form-fitting tactical outfit. Standard-issue SHIELD field gear, or so I was told. Made me look like a badass. Did I feel like a badass? Not at all.

I did a damn good job of faking badassery on my last day in the office, though. Not gonna lie, I threw open that door and strutted through like I owned the place. Everyone stopped and stared and nobody dared say a word. Maybe it was my faux confidence, or maybe it was the sidearm strapped to my thigh that gave them pause. Still, it was incredibly satisfying to shake my boss' hand, then gather up the file box containing all of my things from my desk and leave that place knowing that the odds me having to return to this environment were very slim.

And where did I go from there? I got an office in the Tower, of course. A small office, to be sure, but better than sharing a cubicle with an irritating gossip. And the view was amazing. One of the best that I've ever had. I also had access to better equipment, better training facilities, and better coffee. Comfy chair, a wall to hang my awards on, and a door that I could close if I wanted some privacy. Sounds great, doesn't it?

It was, for the most part. I got surprisingly little pushback from my peers back at SHIELD Central, largely in part I think because they were glad that this was officially Not Their Problem. As for my new “coworkers,” for the most part they weren't so bad either. I still couldn't help feeling like the odd one out, though, even though I had more in common with them than I would openly admit. And trust me, during that first month, I was sorely tempted to say something. But the fear of what would happen if I did far outweighed any desire for commonality, so I kept my mouth shut and did my best to focus on my work.

I couldn't help but remember the lie that Clint had told my mom to get her off of my case, that I was support staff to the Avengers. Well, that little lie had turned into the truth. And even though I wasn't technically seated at the big kids' table, the side perks of being allowed to use their facilities was nice. Like their gym, where I found myself spending increasing amounts of time when I wasn't in my office or out picking up their messes. It was there where I went after finishing up the fine-tuning on my latest after-action report, a relatively minor Hulk smashing, two weeks after my reassignment.

A light shone through the window in the door to the sparring room. I'd intended to get some quality time in with the punching bag – after all, the police sergeant that I'd spoken with had been remarkably antagonistic towards someone who was just trying to help him out – and taking my ire out on a sand-filled leather sack was a lot more constructive than making him spit a few teeth. But it was already in use, so I'd have to wait. I peeked in the window, out of curiosity...

I'm not sure if it had been for personal comfort or for other reasons, but Clint had taken off his shoes and shirt before facing off against the sandbag. I got a fresh appreciation for the excellent fighting shape that he'd maintained, which was pretty damn fine for someone not augmented in any way with serum or tech. Skin laced and riddled with scars both new and old, a thin sheen of sweat, ripple and twitch of muscles as he pivoted and threw his fist into the bag with a strong upward thrust of his arm -

I swallowed in a suddenly dry throat, which led to an outburst of coughing that echoed loudly in the empty hall. _Shit!_ I ducked away from the window as he heard the noise and turned to find the source. Our gazes met for a moment before I could hide, and I felt a knot of conflicted emotions rising in my throat like a precursor to vomit.

The logical thing would have been to take a page from his playbook and just leave. But that's logic, and logic was the first thing to switch off when my thoughts turned to the last time that I'd seen those muscles. So I was frozen up in place, trying to jar my brain out of its unwanted but oh so wonderful replay when the door creaked open. “Hey.”

“Hey.” One last weak cough. “Don't mind me. I'll just, uh, go hit the treadmill or something.”

“S'ok. I'm all done here.”

I was vaguely disappointed to see that he was fully dressed and somewhat cleaned up when he walked past me, a towel tossed over his shoulder. I wasn't too distracted to miss the way that he paused for a handful of seconds at the bend in the hall so that he could look back over his shoulder at me, though, as if to remind me that he knew I'd been staring and that this is what I was missing out on. But I quickly silenced the part of me that wanted to chase him down and throw him up against a wall, instead making good my exit into the sparring room and the punching bag that waited to receive the brunt of my multi-leveled frustration.

“This whole thing is stupid.” _Right foot back, but not too far._ “Tried to tell him...” _Slight bend in the knees._ “That he's my one good thing...” _Little bit of a forward lean. And when you're ready to hit..._ “And what does he take out of it?” _Keep your arm loose until just before you make contact._ I lashed out with my fist, a straight jab. “Criticism!” Jab, cross. “Like I'm a futzing idiot for wanting to stay around.” Feint, jab. “Maybe so. But could I just leave him there?” I shifted my footing and balance and swung my foot up and around. The kick landed well and caused the sandbag to rock and swing under the impact. “So. Futzing. Stupid!”

“I tend to agree.”

I stepped aside from the punching bag and put a hand on it to still its movement while I looked to see who was talking. A blonde woman, well-curved and muscular, stood in the doorway and gave me an assessing head-to-toe lookover. It took me a minute to place her, and when I did it was hard to suppress an inner groan. “Mockingbird. How nice to finally meet you in person.”

“You can call me Bobbi since we're working together now. You've got a good arm.”

I'd heard mixed stories about Clint's ex-wife, and though I'd tried to keep the sources in mind when considering bias, I hadn't been looking forward to our eventual encounter. I flexed my fingers experimentally, said, “That's high praise coming from you.”

“I know potential when I see it.” A shrug. “I also know anger, and I know where some of it's coming from.” Bobbi nodded toward the sparring floor. “Let's go a round. It might help you sort some things out.”

“Uh, I don't know about that.” I gave the sandbag a weak, nervous tap. “Fighting's what you do. I'm just a nerd with a clipboard and no real need to get pounded into the turf.”

“You sell yourself short. I heard about the role you played in the invasion.” One arm bent behind her head in a stretch, Bobbi frowned thoughtfully. “Timely analysis of target intentions provided crucial warfighter support... isn't that how the citation went?” I blinked in surprise, and she laughed. “You're not the only one reading personnel files, Agent. Clint told me about your little dust-up. He's called me three times, actually. Once to complain, once for a spelling question, and last to ask me to talk to you.”

“You two still talk?”

“You have nothing to worry about, if that's what you're asking. I have no interest in a repeat.” Bobbi switched arms. “The complaints, I'll spare you. Spelling – 'inconceivable.' As for the third? He's a grown-ass man. It's time he learns to dig himself out.” She deepened the stretch, added, “I'm here because I'm curious about you. If you were just another piece of tail that he's trying to keep around, he wouldn't have called me three times trying to figure you out. You, Agent Foley, have caught his attention in a way that is simultaneously amusing and worrying. I speak from experience.” Bobbi now windmilled her arms a few times to loosen up her shoulders. “Now come on. Let's see what you can do.”

We wound up going not one round, or even two, but five. Bobbi gave me that same head-to-toe lookover when she gave me a hand up from the floor after the final bout and this time gave a tiny nod as if confirming something. “You aren't completely hopeless. That's a good thing, because you have to be practically Teflon-coated to survive prolonged proximity with him.”

I limped over to my gym bag to fish out my water bottle and my towel. “So what was all this, then?”

“Just wanted to test your determination, that's all.” The smallest of smiles. “You've got it in spades. Don't let his constant flow of bullshit wear you down.”

I didn't go to the resident social that evening, opting instead for a relaxing soak in an epsom salt bath with added essential oils to reduce the amount of pain that my body would have to absorb for itself. I also knew that if I saw Clint that night, the precarious amount of control that I'd established earlier that day would go out the window – probably along with my underwear – and it would be useless trying to deal with him afterward. As I lay in the hot water and inhaled the aromatic steam it occurred to me that there was a slim chance that the nature of our encounter that day had not been accidental, and that he had been trying to get me in the one way that he knew had a chance of working. And it had worked to some degree. _Good thing I rolled a strong Will save._

 --

Looking down at the creature on the slab, I was glad that it was well and thoroughly dead. It had been human at some point a long time ago, but all of the non-essential bits had been carved away and replaced with cruelly elegant modifications for strength and speed. Scars and distortions the length of the arms betrayed the presence of subdermal implants. Even the skin no longer looked normal, and it lacked the elastic give of human tissue when I gave it a tentative poke. Don't get me wrong, I scanned it to make sure it was dead. SHIELD had cleared Valerie's little tricorder – bioscanner, technically, but we called it as we saw it – for use right around the time that I'd been transferred, and she'd convinced them of the logic of me having one. Sweet little piece of machinery, too. So yep, definitely dead. I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it otherwise.

The low lighting in the laboratory didn't help the atmosphere much either. The team had decided on a nighttime raid in order to reduce the chance of civilian casualties, and once the strike crew had gone through and made sure that the place was clear, I'd been called in to take pictures and gather up evidence. Though my official title was post-event cleanup liaison, it had been agreed that my potential was being squandered by limiting me to that role. So not only was I the nerd with a clipboard, but I got a flashlight and a camera and other evidence collection tools – and a direct line to Tony’s AI. I'd also convinced Tony to give me a pair of shades similar to the ones he'd put together for Clint, with the ability to record and stream live video feed in addition to the spectrum analysis and other nifty tricks which Clint had yet to figure out.

“You getting all of this, Jarvis?” I did a slow turn for the benefit of the AI so that it could capture and tag anything that it found noteworthy in my video feed. My question got a crisp affirmative in response. “I'm kinda wondering if the whole body parts in jars thing was really necessary, or if they were just trying to set the atmosphere. Then again, it would make sense to keep your spare parts nearby in case you needed to replace something on your pet death-bot...”

“ _Is that the official terminology, Agent? I'll update my files if necessary.”_

I chuckled. “No, Jarvis. I'm guessing it's a lot quicker to say than 'experimental cybernetically-enhanced human-Chitauri hybrid combat drone,' though. For the record, I didn't come up with that.” I found what I was looking for – a computer terminal with an access port – and stooped to get to work. Or, rather, I took a high-powered USB dongle from one of my waist pouches and plugged it in and let Jarvis get to work while I took another look around. “Do your thing, Jarvis. I'm going to take some more pictures.”

“ _Of course, Agent Foley.”_

My perusal of the parts-in-jars collection was slower and more thorough this time. “...Is that a brain? Ugh. Talk about Abby Normal.”

“ _How's it going in there?”_

Of the four-person strike team that had started out on the op, two had remained to make sure I could work unimpeded. Clint maintained radio silence after the building had been cleared, so the only person I'd heard from had been Jess – Spider-Woman, and coincidentally his ex-girlfriend. Did it bother me that those two were walking around together where I couldn't see what they were doing or hear what they were talking about? Well...

In a professional context, why does that really even matter?

“Just fine, Jess. Thanks. I've plugged Jarvis into the terminal here, he's in the process of doing a full data scoop, and I'm getting a few more notes to send back to the mothership so that they know what to look for once we're done here.” I turned back to the slab. “They're gonna be really interested in Frankenbeast here. The other drones we've encountered were more like foot soldiers – big, dumb, and ugly - but this one, if I had to guess, is more like a stealth operative. Quick and deadly.”

I heard a muttered conversation in the background over my earpiece. _“Clint wants to know if you've taken a good look at it.”_

“And he can't just ask me himself?” I sighed. “Yes, I have. Scanners show no signs of life. Whatever this thing is, as gnarly as it is, they just couldn't get it to work.”

“ _On all frequencies?”_

“Yes, on all frequencies. Even on the ones that he hasn't figured out how to use yet. Critter's dead as a - ”

When you're in an evil laboratory with a dead monster on a slab, there are two things that you should never, ever do: one, assume that it's dead, and two, turn your back on it. As for the first, that wasn't my fault. As far as my equipment could tell, the thing was well and truly deceased. As for the second, well, that's on me.

“ _What's the matter?”_

“You know what I was saying about stealth?” I quickly cycled through my detection filters in all logical combinations that I could think of. “Thing's gone. Not on the table, not on my radar, nothing.”

“ _Guard that terminal. We'll be right there.”_

“Right.” I made a face. As if I could be any help against something that I couldn't detect. So I took up a post in front of the computer, thinking that if nothing else I could block whatever it was with my body if need be. “Status report, Jarvis.”

“ _Ninety-five percent complete, Agent Foley. I will, of course, need additional time to work on the decryption.”_

“We'll worry about that part later. Right now we've got an enemy on the loose, so if you could hurry?”

“ _I'm going as fast as I can, Agent. The data is very complex and there is much to work with.”_

I heard a long scraping sound against one of the metal storage cabinets at the far end of the room. As I watched, five long parallel dents appeared in the cabinet door – not dents, cuts - “Shit, this thing has claws - ”

Jess: _“We're almost to you. Stay calm.”_

Jarvis: _“Ninety-seven percent, Agent.”_

The room went still again. I likewise went still, focusing more on the other senses at my disposal to see if I could track the creature's movement. A quick flip through frequencies – still nothing. A flicker of movement on the edge of my vision as one of the jars slid and fell and shattered on the ground, spilling god-knew-what across the tile. Then silence again.

You know that thing in horror movies where if the protagonist goes quiet enough, they can hear the killer breathing and track them that way? Utter bullshit. The only way that would work is if you're used to depending on your hearing, or if it's augmented somehow. If you're someone like me, though, and you're dealing with a creature engineered for stealth that's just gone invisible and it's out for your blood, you're kinda... well, there's no kinda about it. You're screwed.

“ _Ninety-nine percent.”_

White-hot pain erupted across my midsection as those same claws made a ruin of my torso. I couldn't scream. That's not to say that I didn't try, but my scream instead came across as a wheezing gurgle. Then it reached upward, shredding my guts as it reached up for my heart.

The creature let out a raging screech of agony as an arrow found its target in the creature's back. It howled, removed its hand from my ribcage, reached up and plucked the projectile out. But instead of attacking, it spat defiance – and then it ran.

I barely felt it as I toppled to the floor. My whole body was going numb and cold (shock, undoubtedly) and it felt like my senses were slowly powering down. As it was, the shout in my ear seemed miles away. Someone checked for a pulse at my wrists and neck, brushed their hand against my cheek, begged me to hang in there. _I'll get help, I promise, just stay awake – Eo, stay with me, I'm sorry –_ Another voice blurred in, practical, but no less urgent. _Clint, leave her, there's nothing you can do – we've got to get that thing -_

All went dark and quiet, like falling asleep but so much colder. There was no fighting it. The damage was too severe.

 --

I don't know how long I was out. I don't know what happened while I was out. Hell, I don't even know how I managed to get back up again. All I know is that one moment I wasn't there, and then the next moment I was. I hurt like god knew what, but when I looked down to check my damage, I was stunned to see that there wasn't any. Then I heard the sounds of mayhem from outside and the memories came back to me. _You're still on the clock. Get down there and help them._

I couldn't trust my legs to keep stable on the stairs. Thankfully the elevator was both operational and quick. I took a few quick, deep breaths to gather my thoughts as I rested my hand on the front door and realized that my options were very limited. I could, in theory, give my injuries back to the beast and severely maim it if not kill it outright, but that would require me to catch it first – and one more person would know what I could do. Then I realized the folly of that. “They both think you're dead, anyway,” I muttered. “Just get the futz out there and show them what you can do.”

It wasn't hard to track the movement of the creature even as it flickered in and out of invisibility. A gore trail followed in its wake wherever it went, created by the blood dripping from its wounds. Jess was nowhere to be seen. Clint wasn't doing so hot either from what I could see. He'd taken a knee and was doing his best to immobilize the thing or at least slow it enough for one fatal shot. And it looked like he was going to get his opportunity.

_Whoosh – thud._ The beast cried out in distress and lurched to a halt, blood streaming from an open wound in its thigh.

I pushed my fatigue to the back of my mind and ran for it. A hard kick sent it to the ground and I pounced in the best grapple hold that I could manage, my bare hands on the exposed flesh of its neck. It howled and thrashed, but my grip was stronger. Crimson bubbled from its maw and its cries turned to whimpers and then finally subsided into nothing. “Take your shot! Do it now!”

 --

“Jess is gonna be okay, thanks to you. Whatever that was clipped her pretty good.”

I made a noncommittal sound and tried to shove the words into their correct order in my brain. It was like trying to spell with mud.

“She's also promised that she won't mention anything about the whole... y'know, coming back to life thing.”

“Cool.”

“Uh-huh? Cool? Is that all you've got to say?” I could hear the tension rising in Clint's voice but I didn't have the energy to deal with it. I just needed to get my notes down on this report while the events were still fresh in my mind -

My monitor went dark as Clint reached over and pressed the power button to turn it off. I glared up at him. “Seriously?”

“You almost died out there, Eo, and you're acting like it was no big deal. Just another day at work.”

I shrugged. “As far as I'm concerned, it was. I didn't die, our target did, we got the information that we needed – one hundred percent success.”

An aggravated noise which I ignored. “I wouldn't call it a success, but I'm not the analyst here. I'm just the dumb schmoe with the bow and arrows who watched you almost bleed to death.”

“Get your ass in a chair or go away,” I shot back. “I can't think with you sitting on my desk like that.”

“Suit yourself.” I didn't hear the door close behind Clint as he left. When I looked up an hour later, though, I saw that in his place on the desk now rested a rough chunk of concrete liberally festooned with pebbles. A peace offering of sorts, maybe, but I was too tired to really give it much thought.

 --

I told the team I needed a few days off. They didn't argue. What I didn't know is that Clint had requested some time off as well. Even if I had known, I couldn't have said that I really cared. Even though I'd passed the injury right back to the hands that had dealt it, the trauma and fatigue from seeing my own innards spilled out wasn't something that I could easily get over. The first day I spent either in the tub, trying to soak the pain out, or hiding in bed under the weight of a dozen blankets. Not like I needed the warmth; I needed the sense of comforting weight sheltering me and hiding me away from the world.

As it was, I almost didn't hear the barking from my front doorstep. I thought I was dreaming, but then wondered why on earth I'd be dreaming something that sounded so much like my boyfriend's dog. (Boyfriend? Could I still call him that? I didn't know.) I heaved myself up out of bed with a groan and threw my robe on.

Turns out that I'd heard right. Lucky sat on the doormat, looking up at me expectantly. I saw a scrap of paper tucked into his collar and I fished it out. Shaky scrawl in black ballpoint: _Can I talk to you?_

“Stay, Lucky. I'll be right back.” I went back into my apartment and found a pen of my own to scratch out a response: _I don't know. Can you?_ Then I folded the paper up again and got a biscuit out of a container of dog treats that I kept in my pantry. Lucky devoured the biscuit, accepted some scratches behind the ears and returned the affection with a few licks on my hand, then trotted back upstairs with my reply tucked back in his collar.

I took that time to take a shower and make myself look presentable in the rare event that Clint actually decided to make an appearance. If he couldn't be bothered to show up and was lazy enough to send his dog in his place instead of, you know, making a phone call... then the chances of him actually darkening my doorstep had to be pretty slim.

I'd just barely gotten out of the shower when I heard the weak pounding on my door. I finished drying my hair and threw the towel over the couch, then went to see who it was. “Holy jeebus, you look like ass. What happened?”

“Thanks. Hangover,” Clint grumbled. “ _May_ I come in?”

I noticed the emphasis on the first word of the question, snorted, and opened the door fully to allow him into my apartment. He shambled through the doorway, eyes slitted against the afternoon sun, and found a seat on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter. “Guess I'll start some coffee, then.”

This got an incomprehensible mumble of what might have been gratitude. Clint rested his elbows on the counter and his face in his hands, watching me through the gaps between his fingers as I moved around the kitchen. I could guess at the level of misery he felt and I marveled at the amount of alcohol that he must have consumed in order to merit that kind of retribution from his body. So I went for the grounds that I had in my freezer instead of grinding fresh beans, figuring the drop in quality would be worth the decreased agony on his eardrums.

I left him there for a few minutes so that I could go upstairs and change out of my bathrobe into some regular clothes. On an impulse, I snagged a bottle of aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and brought it back downstairs with me. I left it on the counter near his elbow and turned around so that I didn't see how many he took. “Are you going to talk, or do you need a few more minutes?”

He held up a hand in the “hold on” gesture, so I did. I got two mugs out as quietly as I could and set them on the counter, then gave the coffee pot a few more minutes to finish its thing. The aroma of the beverage seemed to turn something over in his brain, and Clint took the mug that I set in front of him with a pleased “mmm” as he took a deep whiff of the steam rising from the hot liquid. “Y'know you're close to bein' done when you ask your dog for advice on women.” A long slug from the cup. “Y'know you're done when the dog answers you back and it makes sense.”

I said nothing, instead busying myself with my own cup of coffee.

“I dunno if you knew this, either, but your guy is kinda dumb sometimes.” Sip, pause. “Took me three days to figure out that you weren't getting on my case for the Draculas or even for those damn washing machines.” Clint drained his cup and set it on the counter, then ran his fingers through his hair in a way that made it even more of a mess than it had been before. I refilled his coffee and remained silent. “M'just not used to being a good kind of anything to anyone, so I kinda didn't get the clue. Piss-poor excuse, I know, but there it is.”

He didn't drink this time, just wrapped his hands around the cup and let the warmth soak in through his fingers. “And then I saw you almost die. That scared the shit out of me.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine for a moment, then went back down to watching the surface swirl of his coffee. “You were a mess and there wasn't anything I could do. I didn't even know if you'd make it.” Long sip, then, “Dunno if you heard me that night, so I'll just say it again. I'm sorry, and... stay. Please.”

“Clinton Francis, you _are_ a dummy.” I put my cup down and leaned across the counter so that I could rest my hand on his cheek. I could feel the pulse of the headache up through my fingers, the dehydration, all of the other nasty side effects of the body struggling to deal with overindulgence. _Focus on that, draw it up and out and through..._ Compared to the trauma it had recently dealt with, a hangover was nothing, and my body absorbed the symptoms with only the slightest twinge of discomfort. “I wasn't planning on going anywhere.”

This combined with the sudden absence of physical misery was enough to make Clint stare at me in open surprise. He covered my hand with one of his, then turned slightly to brush his lips across my palm with a delicate touch that sent shivers up my arm and made my heart stutter for a moment in my chest. “Thanks.” Both hands were then brought to the countertop, gently. “Missed you.”

It took me a few seconds to gather up my scattered thoughts. “Me too.” I took a sip of my coffee. What I wasn't prepared for was the wash of electric sensation that I felt just then from the lightest contact of his fingers tracing slow, delicate paths up and down the back of my hand and wrist and arm. I set my coffee back down a little harder than I'd intended, causing the liquid to slosh dangerously close to the rim of the cup. “Uh. So I'm curious about something.”

“Do tell.”

“Do you normally work out shirtless, or was that just a show for me?”

The caresses stopped. “Wouldn't you like to know.” Then the beginnings of a sly smile. “I know you liked what you saw, though. Could feel the air pressure change from the way you took a breath outside that door.” The smile widened ever so slightly. “Surprised you didn't jump me when I came out to check on you. Woulda let you, too.”

I couldn't figure out anything to say to that. _Dammit. Only a month and I'm like this? Or was it the near-death thing?_ I threw back the rest of my coffee and put my cup in the sink, letting my fingers clench on the edge of the counter. None of this was hidden from the watchful eyes that noted every detail of my behavior, from the blood flushing red in my cheeks to the faint tremble in my arms and the rigid lines of my neck and jaw as I struggled to keep my composure.

What did me in finally were the quiet footsteps behind me, the casual contact as he reached around me to put his empty cup in the sink next to mine, and then the light brushing aside of my hair so that he could plant a kiss in the curve of my neck. “I mentioned that I missed you, right?”

“You did.” I cleared my throat and prayed that my voice wouldn't crack. “Upstairs, now.”

“Yes ma'am.” Another kiss, slightly higher up, lingering with a tiny hint of teeth. “Any longer and I would've tossed you over my shoulder and carried you up there myself.”

It was a beautiful sight indeed to see those muscles in all of their glory once more and to be able to run my hands over them, to remember which touches would bring pleased murmurs, moans, or gasps. I took my time and savored every moment of it, right until Clint sat up and began to tug the hem of my shirt up so that he could enjoy the same access to me that I had to him. He saw the fear flash across my face and sat back, propped up on his elbows so that he could look at me while we talked. “Something wrong?”

I turned red and looked away. “You really want to see that?”

Puzzled expression, then, “Uh, yeah. I like what you've got under that shirt – a lot.”

I let out a short huff of exasperation, then said, “Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you.” I then peeled off my shirt and tossed it aside. Though I'd been able to survive and transfer the wounds that had almost killed me, I had a wasteland of jagged pink scars from just below my navel all the way up to just under my breasts to show for it. “Injuries go, but scars stay. That's how it works.” I saw him take in a sharp breath and I felt my shame flare high. “That's why I didn't want you to see.”

“And do you have any from me?”

I hesitated, then nodded. “All across my back.”

Clint's smile was pained this time. “Again, I'm sorry. But...” He laid his palm on my stomach, causing heat to radiate out and down from the reverence of that simple gesture. “You're alive, and that's what matters. Scars mean that you survived and that I still have you. I didn't think I'd have that kind of luck.” He then lifted me up a little and shifted my balance, carefully easing me down to the sheets and effectively reversing our positions. “I don't want you to hurt, not again, not ever, but I don't get that choice. But if I had to pick between a thousand scars and six feet under...” He then hitched his thumb in the waistband of my pajama bottoms and eased them down so that I soon didn't have a stitch left on my body. “I'd pick the scars any day.”

 


	16. "Not quite in paradise, but close." (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony does a little bit of digging into Agent Foley's family history and uncovers something unusual that seems to confirm his suspicions. Clint gets an invite to spend Thanksgiving with the Foleys in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation note: "Durak" = "idiot."

“What's the matter? You look like you just swallowed a bug.”

Eo stuck her tongue out at me as she zipped her jacket up to the top and then tugged her beanie down to cover her ears. “Bug would've been nicer,” she muttered. She laced the fingers of one gloved hand with mine and shoved the other in her pocket to keep it warm. “That was just my mom wondering if I'll be coming home for Thanksgiving this year.”

I let Lucky take the lead and we strolled off down the street in a tight group, Eo staying close to me to shelter against the winter chill. “Either there was more to it than that, or your mom doesn't know when to give up,” I replied. “Which was it?”

“Both.” Eo sighed. “Not only does she want me there, but she wants you to come out too. I told her that you don't care much for hokey family stuff and that I didn't want to scare you off. She wouldn't take no for an answer.” Careful side-eye. “I can always tell her that you're busy. It'd be a safe lie.”

I shrugged. “Gonna need to meet 'em sooner or later anyway. Why not now?”

“Just... holidays are bad enough with all of the emotional stuff, Clint, and I know that you're not on the best terms with your family - ”

“That degenerate of a brother isn't what I'd call family. Not anymore.” I half-smiled. “Degenerate's a good word for him. Looked it up the other day.” Seeing the flat, disapproving stare aimed my way, I gave her hand a light squeeze. “Got my family right here. Even that weird-ass cat of yours.” The pink that colored her face wasn't from the cold or the wind, least not that I could tell. “So what's the situation? Gimme the briefing, Agent.”

“Heh.” She thought things over for a minute. “Well, not only is it a fifteen-hour drive if the weather and traffic cooperate, but it's pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. Not quite in paradise, but close.” I then realized that the _p_ was capitalized, and that she was talking about a place. “You heard right. Paradise, Michigan. You could practically spit into Canada if the wind is good, but why would you want to? They're really nice people, that cranky old bastard we work with being the exception. But I'm getting sidetracked. My parents' place is tiny, and my room is a converted storage space in the basement right beneath my brother's room. He can hear everything through the heater vents.”

“Just means we'll have to be quiet, then.”

The flat stare returned, but the smile lurking under it lessened the sting a little. “My dad's probably going to make you sleep on the couch in the rec room, if he even lets you sleep in the house. Might exile you to the garage.” The smile lost some of its cheer. “Dad's an interesting person. Retired Green Beret, went through a lot of... stuff. He doesn't like to talk about it. I kind of know the feeling. My mom's pretty much on her own little hippie planet – there's no meat in the house because of her, which is practically heresy in our neighborhood but nobody gives her grief about it because they don't want to piss Dad off.” Pause, then, “And then there's Richard. Richard the Dick.”

“Your brother?”

“The one, the only. He's a lawyer working out of Detroit and one of the most obnoxious hipsters known to mankind – beard oil, skinny jeans, black-framed glasses, the whole shebang.” The expression on my face must've been priceless. “Like I said, I can tell them you're busy. Mom will be sad, but Dad will be thrilled. He hates it when I bring guys home. And Richard, who knows. It's hard to tell whether or not he's trying to be ironic when he shows an emotion.”

Lucky found a good relief spot, so I stopped and turned around so he wouldn't think I was watching him. Eo looked up at me expectantly. I sighed. “Like I said, gonna have to meet 'em sooner or later. And besides, they hatched you so they can't be that bad.”

“Another bird metaphor? You're such a dweeb sometimes, you know that.”

“Takes one to know one, s'all I'm sayin'.” We began our walk back to the building. “Y'know, I never figured you for a Yooper, but it makes a lot of sense.”

“How so?”

“You aren't frightened of snow, you have some of the weirdest crap for snack food – and don't even get me started about that brick of dough and potatoes and meat that you tried to get me to eat for dinner once. What did you call it? Rhymes with 'nasty,' which is pretty accurate.”

“It's a pasty, and it's delicious! And it's not my fault you don't like pickled eggs.”

“Fine, just don't expect me to kiss you after you eat one. Least not until you brush your teeth.” I shuddered at the memory. “N'then there's the accent. You've gotten rid of most of it, but it comes out when you get really flustered.”

Eo rolled her eyes. “Not my fault you're jealous. Your accent is flatter than that washboard under your shirt, circus boy.”

I raised my free hand up in surrender. “Hey now. Never said I didn't like it. Kinda cute, 'specially that one time when you got all mad and called Logan a hoser for ashing his cigar in your coffee cup.” We'd reached the front of the building, and I let go of her hand so that I could hold the door open for her. I stopped her in the doorway, gave her a light tap on the nose so she'd know I'd only been yanking her chain, and said, “I'll go. One condition – we're taking my car.”

 --

“So I saw that you're going to be taking some time off at the end of the month. Going to a nice little place called Paradise.” Tony shook the sugar packet before tearing the corner off and pouring it into his coffee. “Surely you're aware of the irony of calling a place Paradise when they're used to six months of winter.”

“Just depends on the company, I guess.”

“Aww, listen to you.” Another sugar packet. “Nice to hear that you and the missus are getting along again. Gotta say, it was getting really awkward around here for a while.” One of those little one-serving non-dairy creamer cups added in, then stir. “So this is the big deal, huh? You nervous about meeting the future in-laws?”

“No, I'm not nervous.” Even though Tony was known for being a smart-mouth, something seemed a little too over-the-top about his casualness today. “Why, should I be?”

“You're not arguing. Why are you not arguing?” Tony took a test sip of his drink, frowned, and added in some more coffee. “In fact, you seem pretty serious. I know you're all about act now, deal with the consequences later, but this is something you don't want to do on impulse. Impulse is for candy bars and souvenir tee shirts, not relationships.” I was about to tell him that he was one to talk, but what he said next brought me up short. “Wait. Did one of you almost die? Please don't tell me this is one of those 'I almost lost you and now I can't live without you' kind of things.”

“Sounds like you're projecting, Tony.” _Thank god for overhearing uncomfortable family phone calls,_ I thought as I watched him blink in surprise. _Probably shouldn't tell her that I kept Tony away with a line she used on her brother, though._ “Not like I don't mind the chance to get a cup o' joe for the road, but what's the real reason why you pulled me in here? I've got stuff to do.”

“Since I'm feeling generous today, I'm gonna ignore that obvious lie and move right along. See, remember that conversation we had way back when – what was it, a little over a year ago? - about how you were able to walk away from your up close and personal encounter with a certain agent's 1975 Cobra with minimal injury? Rhetorical question, I know you do. I've been doing some digging into her background to see if there's anything that might clear things up - ”

“You did a background check on my girlfriend?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Nothing that wasn't in the public domain or in SHIELD archives to begin with. Don't worry, it's not like I hacked her Facebook. Anyway, she's squeaky clean, so I followed the family tree. Nothing special about her mom, either, but...” Tony had been typing this whole time, bringing up files on his display and skimming through them as he talked, turning a few around so that I could read them too. “Check out Mr. Foley, here. Native son of Paradise, Michigan, married his high school sweetheart Janna just before shipping out to basic training for the Army. Model soldier. Airborne infantry, Ranger school, Green Beret, stop me if you've heard this already...” I waved a hand at him to continue. “Ah, here we go. Had to call in a few favors to get this one.”

“Project Orion. Another try at the super-soldier serum?” I squinted at the text, a scan from a medical report. “'Warrant Officer Foley, G. M., male, age 25. Subject shows marginal increase in strength and reflex response as well as near-immunity to disease and environmental hazards. Limited self-healing factor as well.' Not what they wanted, but it looks like they let that slide.”

“Considering the role he played in the liberation of Kuwait, I'm pretty sure they said 'eh, good enough.' They let him retire five years after that and haven't bothered him since. Now, DNA imaging wasn't the greatest back then, so there'd be no way to look at the source to see if he had anything that he could pass on.” Tony stepped back from his terminal and tapped his chin thoughtfully for a few moments, then snapped his fingers. “But we do have his daughter, and that's who we really want to know about anyway.”

I could feel a headache knotting up inside my skull. “I can see where you're going with this, Tony, and just... no.”

“I'm not asking you to do anything invasive, Clint. And besides, what you do in the privacy of your own home really isn't any of my business. Just a swab off of her coffee cup once she's done with it, and I could let Jarvis have a look - ”

“I said no.”

Tony's eyes narrowed and I knew he could tell that something was up. “Wouldn't you want to know if the woman you're sleeping with isn't as human as she wants you to believe? She could be dangerous.”

“Anyone could be dangerous with the right training.” I held up on that so that he could catch my drift. “And if you don't find anything, you kicked up a pile of dirt on an innocent woman just because you got a wild hair up your ass and wanted to dig. I'm not helping you on this one, Tony. Just... let us have our holiday in peace, would ya?” I took one last look at the photos that he'd pulled up. Even there, Mr. Foley had a stare that made me feel about six inches tall. _That's where she gets it._ “And thanks for the heads-up about Eo's dad. Nice to know who I'm going up against.”

 --

I did most of the driving on the way out to Michigan, it being my car and all. It was nice to get some new memories in it that didn't involve tracksuits or massive amounts of structural damage, too. The only major modification that I'd made had been to the sound system so that a music player could be plugged in, and I'd put Eo in charge of the music as well as the navigation. Didn't even scold her for curling up on the seat with her feet up on the leather. The further we got away from the city, the more relaxed she seemed to get, and seeing that was a good thing. I was even willing to overlook some of her more questionable music choices.

Eo took over the last leg of the trip since she was more familiar with the roads. The further north we went, the colder it got, and soon the landscape was a white-draped hush of trees and snow and not much else. “So you get six months of this every year?”

She nodded. “Sometimes. Summers are beautiful, though, when we get around to having them.”

“Remind me never to bitch about snow around you, then.” This got a smile. “You really think your dad might make me sleep out in the garage?”

“Maybe. That is, if he even acknowledges your presence. This one guy, my dad really hated him – so he just treated him like part of the furniture. Nearly sat on the guy three times.”

“Yeesh.” I settled down further in my seat and fiddled with the heater vents so that I'd get more warmth. Then I realized something, and I looked back over at Eo to see if I'd seen right. Sure enough, I had. “When'd you steal my beanie?”

“I stole nothing, _durak._ You left it in my apartment, along with one of your jackets, couple pairs of your drawers, and some junk mail you were too lazy to take up to your place. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to move in and being all sneaky-like about it.”

“Well, I do own the building...” Eo dug up a crumpled-up burger wrapper from the seat next to her and tossed it at me. I easily batted it away. “Now that I think about it, we haven't really talked about that.”

To her credit, Eo kept her eyes on the road - but it was still hard to miss her blank-faced gape of shock. “Did you just suggest that we move in together?”

“Maaaaaaybe...?” Not the reaction I was hoping for. “I mean, we kinda already did for two months. That went pretty good, I think.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it did.” A half-smile. “Let's get through the holiday drama first, though. If my dad doesn't sit on you, we'll talk about it again.”

 --

Eo shot me a nervous sideglance, said, “Just remember, we can leave if this gets too weird for you.”

“Eh, I've dealt with worse.”

“You say that now.” She then rang the bell and stood back to wait. “Everything will be just fine, they'll like you - ”

I was about to ask her who she was trying to reassure with that when the door opened. Flannel shirt, black-rimmed glasses, jeans so tightly cut that it was hard for me not to cringe... _Must be Richard._ “Oh,” he said. “It's you.”

Eo rolled her eyes. “Who the futz else would it be, Richie? Let us in, I'm freezing my parts off.”

Richard let us through, acting like it was a huge inconvenience for him to move aside the foot or so. “Mom, Dad, they're here.”

Out-of-tune singing from what I guessed to be the area of the kitchen was interrupted by a whoop of joy and running footsteps. Eo's mother then appeared – barely over five feet tall, an impossible amount of energy bundled up in two lumpy sweaters layered one over the other and a pair of colorfully-patched jeans. She wrapped her daughter up in a vise-grip of a hug and I could hear the air escaping from Eo's lungs with a muffled _oof._ “This just isn't fair, Eowyn. Either you're getting taller or I just keep getting shorter.” Mrs. Foley then peeked around Eo and saw me, and her eyes grew wide. “Oh my goodness.”

I lifted my hand in a cautious wave, not sure what to say to that. “Uh. Hi, Mrs. Foley - ”

“None of that, you. Call me Janna.” She looked back to her daughter, said, “Holy jeebus, he's a big hunk o' man. You said he grew up in the circus? Good thing, because other than some serious contortions I don't know how you two would - ”

“Mom!” The accent came out at full strength. “You don't need to be talking about that, not when I haven't even gotten my shoes off yet. Not ever, really.”

“Well, silly, take your shoes off then.” Janna made a face at her daughter and I saw then that even though she had her father's intimidating glare, Eo had gotten her mother's smile. “Your dad's tidying things up downstairs. He'll be up in a minute.”

A minute turned out to be a few seconds. I heard heavier footsteps coming up from the basement, a door opening and closing again, and then: “Do I hear paws? C'mere, sugar bear!”

_Sugar bear? Gonna have to remember that one._

Eo broke away from her mom. “Daddy!” She then got another bone-crushing, lung-squeezing hug. “Dad, this is - ”

“I know who he is.” Mr. Foley gave his daughter one last twirl, then put her down and gave me an examining look. “You may call me Mr. Foley or 'sir.' We aren't bosom buddies and I'll have no first name business from you.”

I don't know how it was possible, but it didn't look like he'd aged one bit from the photos that I'd seen of him. “Yessir. Good to finally meet you.”

Based on Mr. Foley's facial expression I knew that he didn't feel the same way. Also, based on what I knew of his background – and what I saw now of his protectiveness – I knew that I'd have to step light around him. Not like I wouldn't have been polite to begin with. I might have been raised as a carnie, but that doesn't mean I'm a total rube. Not an idiot, either, maybe ninety-nine percent of one... but it was pretty clear that messing this man the wrong way would end badly for me.

“Janna tells me that you two already ate on the way here and that you're pretty wiped from the trip. Your room is ready, Eowyn, and I've put the heater in there in case you can't handle the cold anymore. For you,” again, the shrink-ray stare at me, “there are blankets and pillows on the couch downstairs.”

Janna frowned at her husband, said, “Dear, he's gonna freeze his butt off like that and you know it. Just let them share a room, why don't you?”

This got a scowl from Mr. Foley. “I don't think that's appropriate.”

“They're both consenting adults, and there's nothing unnatural about physical closeness.” A sneaky grin, then, “Besides, they won't need a heater.”

Silence from Mr. Foley for a long moment, then a heavy sigh. “Fine.”

I'd almost forgotten that Richard was still in the room until he made a disgusted noise and muttered, “You're not the one who hears everything from her through the heater vents, Dad. Two words: Spice Girls.”

 --

Dunno what it is about returning home that brings out the absolute freak in people, but it didn't take long after we'd shut the door for the night in that tiny basement bedroom for Eo to pounce on me. I was a-okay with it, 'specially after hearing Richard's prissy comment about the heater vents. We did our best to stay quiet, something we'd never really been worried about before, and the focus that took made every sensation feel twice as intense. It was a small slice of heaven to fall asleep afterward tangled up with her under a huge pile of warm blankets, skin against skin in the quiet dark under a ceiling that had been painted to look like the night sky.

I was alone when I woke up. The door opened a few moments after that and she walked in, wrapped up in a fluffy pink bathrobe that I'd never seen before, her hair up in a towel. I don't know whether or not she knew I was awake, but she took her time in getting dressed and I got a good look at the marks that her abilities had left on her body – a small galaxy of scars across her back from when I'd broken her windshield, and a middle full of claw marks from that night she'd had half of her innards ripped out. The sight of that had been burned into my memory and sometimes I could still feel her blood on my hands. Part of me wanted to thank Mr. Foley for whatever part he'd played in passing that gift on to her, but I had a feeling that he wouldn't have liked hearing that kind of stuff from me.

I spent the rest of that day doing my best not to get underfoot while Eo and her mom got the place ready for dinner. Mr. Foley went outside early on to cut some firewood and brushed off my offer to help with a snort and no further comment. That left me in the living room with Richard, who curled up on one end of the couch and pecked away at his laptop while giving me a lizard-like look of pure “ugh” each time I did anything more than breathe. I poked my head into the kitchen and offered to help out there but was waved off by Janna who loudly said, “You're a guest – for now – so go watch some television or something. We'll be fine.”

 _For now?_ I asked Eo while her mom's back was turned. _What's she mean?_

Eo put down her potato peeler just long enough to reply, _Don't ask._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Foley is inspired to a fair extent by Ron Swanson.  
> Also, the song that Mrs. Foley is singing is "The Hunting Song" by Tom Lehrer. (Here's a link to a clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyoSLOlglw)


	17. "Apparently beige isn't harmonious." (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An awkward family holiday dinner, followed by an interrogation over breakfast.

“So, Richie, are you still dating that nice girl – er, what was her name again? Thursday?” Janna asked, topping off her wine glass.

Richard rolled his eyes. “Monday. And yes, we are. She couldn't be here because she had an appointment.”

“What the crap kind of appointment do you have on Thanksgiving?” Mr. Foley asked. I wondered the same thing.

“Feng shui consultation,” Richard answered. “She wants to get a new sofa and needs to make sure that it doesn't mess up the chi flow in her living room. Apparently beige isn't harmonious.”

 _Beige? Harmonious?_ I cleaned up the last bit of pie from my plate. Dinner had been meat-free because of Eo's mother's personal dietary beliefs, but fortunately her restrictions didn't extend towards dairy and she'd told her daughter not to skip on the “good stuff” (butter, sugar, eggs and whatnot) when making dessert. I could now add out-of-this-world pies to Eo's list of confirmed skills and wondered what I'd have to do to convince her to make stuff like this more often once we went back east.

“That's very smart of her,” Janna said. “More people should pay attention to the atmosphere in their living space. One chair in the wrong spot can throw off the entire place.”

“And here I thought paisley was the worst thing that you could put in a living room,” Eo muttered. She shot me an apologetic sideglance but I knew she was miserable. I wasn't doing too bad, but I did wonder what part of weird suburban hell I'd stumbled into. “More pie, anyone?”

Fast agreement from all around the table. I gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I'll help.” She didn't argue, so I took some of the plates and the empty beer and wine bottles off of the table and followed her to the kitchen. I kept my voice low so that the others couldn't hear, asked, “Everything okay?”

Eo looked up from divvying up the last of the pumpkin pie with a shaky smile. “Sure. Just like a Rockwell painting.” I gave her a blank look. She sighed and waved it off. “My brother's dating a girl named after a day of the week who'd rather keep the chi fresh in her apartment than come out for dinner – unless that's just her version of 'I need to stay home and wash my hair,' in which case my brother's got way bigger problems. My dad is just... my dad, and I'm surprised that my mom hasn't made some comment about the size of your feet. Or your hands. Or whatever it is.”

I looked first at my feet, then at my hands, then realized what she was talking about. “Oh. Heh. Welp, no family's perfect, right? So long as she doesn't ask me about mine, I think we can get out of here without taking too much damage.”

You'd think I'd have learned not to open my mouth like that. We returned to the dining room a few minutes later with more pie for everyone and fresh beers for me, Eo, and her dad, only to hear conversation squeak to a stop. Janna, trying to be a good hostess, put on her brightest smile and asked, “So, we know what you do for a day job. Why don't you tell us about your family, since you aren't with them today?”

“Uh.” _Shit._ I looked around the table at the others. Eo was doing her best not to facepalm, Richard was as unreadable as usual, and Mr. Foley looked like he was silently guessing my measurements for a coffin fitting. “Well... my parents died in a car accident when I was younger, so they aren't around. Then there's my brother, who blinded me and then felt bad about it and donated marrow to help fix my eyes. I got pissed off at him and kinda stole a huge-ish amount of money from him... He stole it back, and now he's off god knows where playing sugar daddy to one of my former neighbors and her kids.” I stopped for a breath and to take a long pull on my beer as an icy glare from the head of the table dropped the temperature in the dining room about ten degrees. “I've, uh, I've got a dog. One-eyed, answers to Lucky. That's about what I've got going on, the Clint Notes version.”

If this was a television show, you would've heard crickets in the silence that followed. As it was, I heard the loud echoing clink of multiple forks hitting plates, followed by Eo taking a long drink of her beer and what sounded like Mr. Foley cracking his knuckles. Richard groaned in a pained way, like maybe he'd been the only one to get my joke. Janna's face seemed to be stuck. She was the first one to recover, though, with the big fake grin turning into a smaller, kinder smile. “Well, then, sounds like it's maybe a good thing that you came here.”

 --

Since I hadn't been allowed to help out in the kitchen earlier, I volunteered to deal with leftovers and dishes. Janna put up only a token argument and took my offer of assistance gratefully, shooing her daughter off with an excuse of it being her reward for making the best pies in known family history or something like that. The conversation was then kept light and carefully casual, mostly questions about my dog or about life in my building. Once everything was done, I said my goodnights and made my way back down to the basement.

Eo was already in bed, tucked up under the blankets with a book. She looked up briefly when I came in, then went right back to her reading with no comment – not even a peek when I shucked my day clothes and put my sleep clothes on. I got under the covers next to her and pulled them back up before she could say anything about the cold, then asked, “All right, what did I do now?”

Eo put the book down on her lap and rubbed the bridge of her nose. I knew the gesture; it was the roots of a headache and I cringed to think that it was because of me. “Just getting some mixed signals from you.” I made a confused noise, and she explained. “When I asked you to come out here, in that conversation you said I'm your family. You kinda sorta maybe asked me to move in with you while we were driving over here. Then as soon as someone else asks you about it, you act like none of that even happened.” She looked back up at me and I could feel something in my chest twinge like someone'd snapped a rubber band. “Which one is it?”

“Family.” I let out a careful breath. “No question there. I just... I couldn't say it, not with your dad giving me vulture eyes across the table. I felt like if I said something like that, he'd find something to stab me with. Probably his fork.”

Eo gave a tiny, amused snort. “I guess I can give you a pass this time, then.” She closed the book and passed it over for me to put on the nightstand. I switched off the lamp and fluffed the pillow before lying down, and it wasn't long before Eo curled up against me with her head resting on my chest. “At least he's noticing you. It might not seem like a good thing, but he at least thinks that you're worth his energy.”

“Or that I'm a threat.”

“If you were a threat, you'd be sleeping out in the woodshed. You're lucky.”

I laughed. “I know.”

\--

Eo and her mother departed early the next morning for more populated points in order to do some early holiday shopping, which was apparently a tradition in her family. Mr. Foley drank a cup of coffee at the dining room table while keeping an eye on the clock and when the hands hit 7:30 he got up and went to put his boots on. “Richard, stay here and write about your feelings or whatever it is you do. You - ” a pointed look at me “ - are coming with me.” I must have looked worried or something because Mr. Foley huffed an impatient sigh through his mustache and added, “You're not going to die. At least it's not on the schedule... yet. You have five minutes. Go.”

And that's how I found myself in a rickety pickup that looked about five minutes away from dying, with a heater that barely worked and that unique funk that only comes from a lot of time spent out in the woods. The ladies had taken the nicer vehicle out on their shopping trip, and Mr. Foley had taken one look at my car and shaken his head. We didn't talk while he drove and I didn't mind. I needed the time to mentally prepare myself for whatever he had planned.

Not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised as hell when we pulled up into the parking lot of a diner that had been closed when Eo and I had passed it two days earlier. I hesitated before getting out. “We're just getting some breakfast,” Mr. Foley said. “I don't have a firing squad waiting for you out in back, if that's what you're curious about. But if you want to stay here and freeze, choice is yours.”

I followed him inside where the server greeted him as one of their regulars and took him to a booth out of the sightline of anyone coming into the restaurant. The server asked him for his beverage order and without a pause he said, “Coffee, black. Leave the pot.”

“You got it, Mr. F,” she said, then left.

More silence followed. I watched Mr. Foley unwrap his silverware from the paper napkin around them and then arrange the knife, fork, and spoon in so careful a way that I suddenly realized what this was - an interrogation, plain and simple. _At least I know what I'm dealing with now,_ I thought. I settled back and waited.

The server came back with the coffee pot and two cups. She put the pot on the table along with the cups and then left again. Mr. Foley poured both cups full and slid one across the table to me. He didn't add anything to his, so I didn't either. A sip, an approving nod and grunt, and then folding his hands on the tabletop in front of him – all while fixing me with that unblinking, unflinching stare.

 I mirrored his gesture, doing my best to keep my face as bland and pleasant as I could while not giving away any of the discomfort that this situation was giving me.

I kept time by means of a clock hanging up on the wall just past Mr. Foley's head. Our standoff lasted for about five minutes. _He's gonna start in with the questions any time now – little things, just to make me comfortable -_

“Your plans and intentions for my daughter. Go.”

I blinked. So much for small questions. “Uh.”

Deep frown. “Wrong. Try again.”

 _Pop quiz! Think quick, Hawkeye._ I took another sip of my coffee. “Well, um, I asked her to move in with me.”

“And?”

“She's still thinking about it.”

A thoughtful “hmm” from Mr. Foley. “Continue.” I gave him my best 'I don't get it' look. He sighed. “Assuming she agrees, what then?”

I looked down at my coffee, then back up to him. “Haven't really thought about it.”

The frown returned, deeper this time. “Lying. This is your first and only warning.”

More coffee, as much to stall as to collect my thoughts. _No use in trying to change the subject or making something up. Fall on your sword and get it over with._ “I kinda think I want her to stay around for a while.”

“Meaning what? Spit it out, we don't have all morning.”

I was pretty sure that there was nothing I could say that would make him dislike me more than he already seemed to, so I heaved a hefty sigh. “Fine. You asked. I'm thinking I wanna make this official, finally have a family of my own, all of that. With her.”

“You think you want to, or you know you want to?”

“I know I want to.” I sat back against the booth and waited for Mr. Foley to unleash hell. And then nothing happened. “Okay, what gives?”

“Quiet, I'm thinking.” He drained his cup, poured another one, and drank half of that before talking again. “All right. You've given me your answer, and I'll congratulate you on your bravery – however long it took you to muster it. And now I'll give you my answer: No.”

“What-?”

“Are your hearing aids on the fritz? I said no. N-O. A strong, simple negative - ”

My annoyance overtook any fear I had of him at that point. “I get it. I'm not an idiot, at least not all of the time. I know what 'no' means, but... why?”

“Because I don't like you, that's why.” The server chose that time to come by the booth again, and Mr. Foley's face and tone softened briefly. “I'll have my usual, Charlene.”

The server scribbled out a long series of notes on her order pad, then looked at me. “Stack of pancakes, two scrambled eggs, side of hashbrowns, side of bacon. Thanks.” I waited for her to leave, then said, “Yeah, I kinda got the hint on that. Care to explain why?”

“Like I said when you first walked in: I know who you are. I've watched the news, and I've read between the lines. You act first, damn the consequences, and hope that someone else will pick up the mess. And I'm not even going to start on the clusterfutz that happened in New York. Do you really think that I'd want my daughter with someone like that?”

I couldn't answer, so I didn't.

Apparently that was the right choice. Mr. Foley sat back also, relaxing into the booth cushions. “Thing is, though, I didn't raise an idiot. I raised my daughter to be a tough, strong, and smart young woman who could make her own choices about what's best for her. You're here by her choice because she sees something in you worth keeping around. I'll be damned if I can guess what it is, but the fact remains... it's not my choice. It's hers, and I'll live with it.”

“Break out the futzing champagne,” I muttered. I didn't know if his grudging acceptance was genuine, or if he was making a show of defeat in order to lull me into a false sense of security.

“I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Now, next question: why are you treating my daughter like she's made out of glass? I can think of two possibilities. One, you've already gotten a start on that family of yours – in which case I need to have a talk with her about her drinking. Two, it's something to do with your line of work, it just showed up recently, and you're protecting her while she figures it out. Which one is it?”

Not sure what it says about me that this question was less nerve-wracking than the first. I took a sip of my coffee and held up two fingers. Mr. Foley let out a long, heavy breath and quietly shook his head. “It's a reasonable assumption that you looked into my background. You wouldn't be so cautious around me if you didn't know my history.”

He looked out the window for a few moments, then said, “I left my job when I did because I realized that I had a choice to make: I could either teach people in Somalia how to kill each other in the name of peace, or I could come home and teach my daughter how to ride a bicycle. Life gets a lot more interesting when you see that you have a legacy. So I retired, and I came home. Hopefully you'll find the sense to do the same thing when the time comes. And if things go the way you tell me you want them to with her, it will.”

The dark mood at our table was broken by the arrival of our food. Mr. Foley's order alone had to be carried by a second server – a tray stacked wide and high with waffles, eggs, sausage, and bacon. He closed his eyes for a second or two and took an appreciative whiff of the steam coming off of his food. “I only get good bacon once or twice a year, and that's when I can get Janna out of the house for long enough so I can sneak off. Can't cook it in the house or she'll smell it.” He picked up one of the bacon strips off of its plate and bit into it, chewing a few times before swallowing with a low moan that made me feel like I should ask him if he wanted some privacy. “God, that's good.”

Salt and pepper on the eggs, butter and syrup on the waffles. I didn't know what an appropriate conversation topic would be, so I stayed quiet and enjoyed my own meal while waiting for him to talk if he wanted to. Ten minutes later, half of the tray was gone and he stopped to let it settle. “Janna has no clue about the serum, by the way. She thinks that my good health is due to all of the hippie crap that she makes me eat. But you know what? All of the kale smoothies and carob chip cookies are worth it to see that she's happy. It's amazing all of the weird shit that you can put up with for the people you care about.”

 _Noooooo kidding,_ I thought, but kept my agreement to myself.

It didn't surprise me to see Mr. Foley plow through that big pile of food in so short a time. Though he hadn't gotten the same effects from the serum as Steve – who also needs huge amounts of food in order to fuel his boosted body – but it made sense that these kinds of gifts would require more energy. I suddenly felt grateful for the smaller amount of food on my plate.

A small embarrassing moment came along with the check when I hesitated for too long to grab my wallet. Mr. Foley gave me a disapproving look and grumbled, “This isn't a date, son. Pay your share.” I did as he said, and when I opened up my billfold, I noticed that a twist tie had somehow made its way in there along with my cash and my various forms of ID. The two ends had been twisted together and then the whole thing bent into a figure-eight. _Now how did that get in there?_

After the bill was settled, we went back out to the truck. Mr. Foley popped the glovebox and took out a small spray can of fabric freshener which he then used to make himself smell like a spring garden or whatever it said on the label. He tossed it to me. “We can't go back to the house smelling like half a pig, or she's gonna know something's up.” I followed his lead and then stashed the can again. “One other thing: If you tell my wife that we went here, I will deny everything and then blame you for leading me down the path of corruption with your loose morals. Am I clear?”

“Yessir.”

“Good.” Mr. Foley looked down at his watch. “We have about an hour before they get back. I need some top-shelf whiskey and a pack of cigarettes – let's go.”


	18. "Something, something, 'carnie whackjob'..." (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having survived Thanksgiving at home with her family, Agent Foley returns to New York City and has some decisions to make.

“You should let me do this more often. I had so much fun! Of course, I had to bring in a few physicists and an engineer or three, then set up a test rig that would simulate a bow with an eleven hundred newton draw...” Valerie sighed wistfully. “You know that he's strong. You see that every day. But just as a point of reference, it takes a little bit under four hundred and fifty newtons of force to bench press a hundred pounds. Do the math – eleven hundred newtons is about equivalent to bench pressing two hundred and forty four pounds.”

She saw me trying to hide a yawn, although it wasn't from all of the numbers – but she didn't know that. “It's why he's able to pick you up and carry you without breaking a sweat. Not bad at all for someone who doesn't get their body from a lab, right?” Valerie gave me a pitying smile, said, “Aww. You must be tired, since I just explained your boyfriend's hotness with science and you didn't even bat an eyelash. Nothing?”

I yawned again, blinked a few times, and shook my head. “Sorry. Still recovering from the trip home for Thanksgiving. Exhausting on so many levels.”

Valerie winced. “I can only imagine. All right – well, let's show you what we came up with. Then we can get you out of here and get you some food and you can tell me all about Turkey Day horrors up in the Great White North. Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

“All right!” Valerie clapped her hands together eagerly and then popped the locks on the padded case on the table in front of us. “Based on the budget that you gave us, I think you'll be pleased with what we came up with. First off, armor-piercing arrow – can go through plating up to four inches thick before detonating a compact explosive charge. Second, EMP arrow. Should be used with extreme caution – we took out a good chunk of the fourth sublevel testing zone for three hours. Very effective. Third, fire extinguisher arrow – no explanation needed. And, because it's the holiday season and we're in a giving mood, half a dozen extra-strength magnetic arrowheads.” Valerie grinned at me hopefully. “So? What do you think?”

I was not too tired to manage an appreciative smile. “And you convinced everyone to do this in addition to their regular work? What did you have to tell them?

“Nothing outside of the truth,” Valerie answered. “Most of the people in R&D have never even laid eyes on an Avenger personally, much less had the chance to make gear for one. And even though I told them that it was a purely personal project and not a formal requisition, they jumped at the chance. All they ask is that you get some metrics on the field efficiency of these arrows, considering that they're prototypes. Oh, and, uh, maybe some souvenirs – one of those I Heart NY shirts for Ramzi, and Mila asked for a snowglobe.”

“I can do that.” I flipped the lid closed and locked the case again. “Hopefully this'll make up for last year.”

“Now, maybe my batting average isn't the greatest on these things, but even I know that good relationships aren't about keeping score.” A wicked grin, then, “It's a good thing, too. Based on what you've told me about your family, it'd take you two years of hard work to make up for putting him through a holiday with them. Now, let's get out of here.”

 --

For once I was grateful for my abilities when I woke up in the guest room at Valerie's with a pounding hangover and the reverb of her drunken shocked exclamations ringing in my ears. _“What the what? He asked you to move in with him? Oh my_ god _, Eowyn. I have trouble even getting the cute barista at the Starbucks near here to notice me, and not only are you up to here in Hawk-booty, the guy wants to cohabitate?”_ She'd fallen to her knees on the living room carpet, all but sobbing at my feet. _“Tell me your secrets, sensei. Make me your disciple.”_

And then I'd made the mistake of telling her that I was still thinking about it. _“Eowyn. Eowyn, what is wrong with you? This was when, right before Thanksgiving? And it's mid-December now? He's probably lost all hope. Stop thinking and aaaaaact.”_

I found it hard to take this advice seriously from the same friend who had given me verbal long-distance side-eye over the phone for getting too involved too quickly. But she did have a point. I was doing myself no favors by dragging my feet, and even if I thought it was a bad idea, I at least owed Clint the respect of saying so.

I barely made it one step inside my apartment upon my return home before I slipped and stumbled on an unlikely obstacle: a pair of purple briefs. “What on earth...” Then I heard a scratching at my door and a muffled _woof._ I opened the door again to see Lucky sitting on the doorstep, tail wagging in cheerful greeting. Glancing down to the underwear in my hand, I realized what must've happened. “Why, hello there. Did you bring these to me?” An affirmative _wurf._ “Your owner's teaching you some strange new tricks, I guess. Or did he forget them in the laundry?” Another affirmative. “Well, guess we'd better find him and get his unders back.”

I locked the door and followed the dog up the stairs. As we walked, I became aware of someone singing on the edge of earshot: _“All the single ladies, all the single ladies...”_ I shook my head and kept climbing. The singing got louder as we got closer. And then we were in front of Apartment M, a unit which had recently been occupied by a single mother and her child until a happy change in her life had offered her the opportunity to move. It had stood vacant for a month at least and I hadn't seen anyone come by to look at it. This had puzzled me, too, but I'd had bigger things to worry about and had decided to leave this up to Clint – after all, this was his building.

The door was unlocked and it swung open under the pressure of my fingers. The singing was louder. I'd known it was a man singing along pretty soon after I'd first heard it, but... I walked carefully through the apartment, noticing the gleam of the hardwood floors under my feet and fresh paint on the windowsills. A light shone in the kitchen. A radio sat on the counter, with an iPod – my iPod, I realized with a blink – plugged into the auxiliary dock. Those speakers blared the song that I now heard, and the person I heard singing was Clint.

I leaned in the doorway just out of sight to watch him work. He was repainting the cabinets, lost in focus on his project, but not too lost to add a little shimmy-shake of his hips and shoulders along with the music. “I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips, and we tighter than my Dereon jeans.” Hip-shimmy, and a light smack on the hindquarters. “Actin' up, drank in my cup, I could care less what you think...”

It was mesmerizing, really. It was enough to make me forget that I was loitering in the shadows with a pair of his underwear in my pocket, watching him slather a fresh coat of ivory over the cabinet doors while he gyrated his lower half in a way that reminded me that it had been a few nights since we'd last slept together. The singing wasn't half-bad, though he posed no competition to the original vocalist. “If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it. Don't be mad once you see that he want it, 'cause if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it. Woah-oh-ohhhh!”

One last dab of paint on a cabinet door. The brush was rinsed out, the paint can sealed again. Clint pressed pause on the music and, after wiping his hands off on a paint rag, came over to give me a quick, careful hug. He smelled like sweat, lacquer, a smidge of Behr Palais White, and the barest ghost of what might have been aftershave. “Hi there,” he said. “Welcome back.”

I stretched up to give him a light kiss on the cheek. “Thanks. Looks like you've been busy.”

“Just some small renovations. Have a look around.”

My curiosity trumped any fatigue or wariness that I might have felt and I did as he suggested. While the unit wasn't big, it was larger than the one I lived in at the time. Its centerpiece was the living room, long and narrow, with built-in bookcases and tall windows. A doorway on one end led to a small breakfast nook and the kitchen, and the other end to the bathroom and bedrooms. Hardwood floors throughout, original brick walls. “Looks nice. Wish I could justify something like it, but the rent's probably beyond me.”

“Good thing you know the landlord. See, I was thinking I'd give you the, uh...”

“Right of first refusal?”

“Yeah. Right of first refusal. It's got better light than your place, an antique clawfoot bathtub, pretty decent-sized kitchen... Second bedroom is kinda small, so you could use it for a closet, or maybe an office. Or, you know, a second bedroom. For smaller people... if you need that.” He shoved the paint rag in his back pocket and moved to stand next to me, slipping his arm around my waist. “Downside is that you'd be getting a roommate. Guy's kind of a dweeb, and he's got a dog. Dog's kinda cute, though, so maybe it's not so bad. What d'you think?”

My heart lurched. Part of me was terrified, but the rest was envisioning late nights spent on the couch in front of the television, late mornings in bed with the sunlight streaming in through the window, the moments of quiet companionship where no words are needed because just knowing the other person is near to you is good enough. It's not hard to guess which part won. “Sounds great. I'll take it. Just, ah, warn the roommate that I snore.”

“I don't think he'll mind.”

 --

I hate moving. Always have, always will, even when I have highly skilled and overqualified help to do it. I even felt a little pang of sadness when I closed the door on my old place for the last time and handed the key over to Clint. It seemed like just yesterday that he'd opened that door for the first time and given me the tour, wincing as he tried to get me to ignore the broken glass from where he'd been tossed through the balcony door just hours previous. I'd been curious about him even back then, though it was more in the way you're intrigued by a stranger you pass on the street. You don't envision ever meeting them again or having much reason to talk to them, but the interest is still there. Funny how things happen in our lives when we least expect them to.

I made sure to put my tall bookcase in a place where Bacchus could flee to if needed, where he could survey the entirety of his new domain without having to move a whisker. He treated Lucky with casual disdain, Clint with tolerance, and me with cool detachment for having moved him into a new lair. But he got used to it.

We all got used to it. Clint left most of the trappings of his day job upstairs – in his 'nest,' he jokingly called it – so that he could keep that separate from the new shape of his civilian life. It felt strange, too, the first time that I came home from the office and saw him passed out asleep on the couch in his work clothes. Not that I hadn't seen that sight before, but knowing that this was now home for both of us and that I'd be seeing that more often took some mental adjustment.

And then it was Christmas. There was no gift exchange this year, but the residents did meet up on the roof for festivities just as we did when the weather was nicer. Chit-chat was muffled by scarves, hoods, and jackets. However, even that was not enough to stifle the commentary from the peanut gallery.

“Hey, Clint, just so you know – I've lost twenty bucks betting on you. What's the deal?” This was from Tito.

“I should be asking you that,” Clint fired back. “What's the bet?”

“I'm not sayin',” Tito grumbled. “Just know that you cost me twenty bucks.”

“Could be anything,” Clint replied when I gave him a curious look. “Knowing him, I'm kinda glad he doesn't wanna say.”

“Tito's just embarrassed because he lost a bet, that's all.” Deke, this time. “And it was his idea in the first place. But just so you know, I'm an ordained minister. Got my certificate online, so if you need me...”

“Aw, shush. I just got her to move in with me, so don't go scaring her away with crazy talk like that.” It was too cold for me to blush effectively, but I didn't miss the quick darting sideglance from Clint. Not scared, not worried, more checking my reaction than anything else.

We stayed up there until the beer was gone, and then the crowd slowly dispersed to go either back to their residences or to other celebrations. I puttered around in the kitchen for a little while, putting together a tray of finger foods in accordance with a Christmas Eve tradition from my family – thirteen different kinds for good luck in the new year. Not like I wasn't happy with things the way they were, but a little bit of extra help couldn't hurt, right?

I noticed an unusual kind of antsiness as an undercurrent to Clint's usually pleasant demeanor during that night and the following day, but it didn't seem to be directed at me, so I gave him his space. I knew that the guys in the rooftop crew were full of bullshit and liked to try to get under each other's skins, too, so I didn't take their comments during the holiday gathering too seriously either.

All of that aside, I will profess to being initially confused and slightly worried when it came time for gifts to be exchanged and I was seated on the couch with directions to close my eyes and hold out my hands. “Now, I'll admit I was kinda at a loss as to what I could get for you. You seem like you've already got everything that you want, so what's a guy to do?” Clint's voice at my ear, sending prickles through my blood. “But then I remembered, you're named after one of the most badass women that a nerd could hope to be named for. And what does a badass lady like you need? Open your eyes.”

I did, and my jaw dropped. A tooled leather scabbard worked with bronze fittings, holding a one-handed shortsword with a fullered blade that sang quietly as I brought it out under the light. “Begone if you be not deathless,”  I murmured, “for living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him!” I took one last look at it, taking in every last detail down to the hand guard in the form of horse heads, before re-sheathing the blade and carefully setting it on the coffee table. “That's gonna look beautiful in my office. Now stay put, I'll be right back.”

The reaction I got once he laid eyes on the contents of that locked case made the trouble I'd gone through to get it made all worthwhile. Joy, awe, the huge grin of a little boy who's just been handed a box full of firecrackers by an adult who doesn't know any better. “And here I thought you couldn't get any more amazing. How long ago did you ask them to do these?”

This time I did blush. “January 2nd. I kinda had a feeling, I guess.”

The case joined the sword on the coffee table. “Y'know what? I've decided. I'm keepin' you.”

My laugh came out of my lungs in a whoosh as I found myself being tackled down onto the couch cushions. “Good thing,” I said.

 --

The antsiness intensified the day after Christmas Day. Clint tried to hide it by making me breakfast and serving it to me in bed, and when I asked him what was wrong he waved off my concern in a way that just screamed _Be casual._ He was unusually silent when we took Lucky for an afternoon walk, and when we got back to the apartment it wasn't long before he excused himself to go on an unspecified errand. Even though there was no way in hell that I believed his lip service to being fine, I trusted that he would let me know if it were anything serious. That said, it was difficult for me not to be worried. Everything had gone so well up until today, I hadn't said anything to upset him – that I knew of – and I was amazed that I could walk after how thoroughly I had been, er, thanked for his present.

“What the futz is going on in that brain of yours, Clinton Francis?” I muttered as I looked up at the clock for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was eight in the evening, well after dark, and I was about two heartbeats away from assembling a search party when my phone chimed with a new text. It was him. _Roof. Bring beer._

I sighed and hauled myself up from the couch. “Dunno how you deal with him, Lucky. Any useful hints or tips?” The dog twitched his shoulder in a canine shrug and resettled himself in front of the radiator. I put on a few warm layers and grabbed two longnecks out of the fridge, then made my way back up to the rooftop with my mind a-jitter. He was there when I arrived, brushing snow away from the ducting boxes at the far end with his coat sleeve. “Hey, you. You had me kinda worried there for a little bit – what's up?”

A rueful grin, a mumbled apology. “Sorry. I just needed some solo think time. You know how that is, right?” He next unfurled a green wool army blanket over the spot he'd cleared off. “C'mon, have a seat.”

I looked at him dubiously but did as he asked, letting him boost me up onto the improvised perch. “What's all this about? If you need to talk, we can do it inside – you know, where it's not cold as balls.”

A ragged laugh. “I try to keep mine pretty warm, but, uh... yeah.” Clint took one of the beers from me and twisted the top off, shoving the cap into his pocket before handing the bottle back to me and taking the other for himself. “Promise we won't be out here too long. I just needed someplace where I couldn't get too distracted.”

I took a sip of my beer and watched him carefully. “All right, now you're really starting to scare me.”

This time he looked genuinely worried. “Not what I was going for. Just... let me talk through this, okay?”

“Sure.”

Silence for several long moments, then. “It's been a year since we, uh, made us a thing. After the game. We both thought it was a grade-A bad idea, and lots of times since then I've thought to myself, 'Holy hell, Clint, you were right.' But for a bad idea...” He stopped, took a drink, then continued. “I had a talk with your dad while you n' your mom were out shopping. He said he couldn't guess why you keep me around, and I gotta say, I wonder sometimes too.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Clint held up his hand. “Not looking for an answer, but I do wonder. Usually first thing in the morning when I wake up and see you sleeping there. After all of the weird shit that's happened to you because of me, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to run off.”

Clint drained his beer and put it aside, then pulled his wallet out of his pocket and rummaged around. I finished my own drink while I watched him, more confused than ever. He finally found what he was looking for and put the rest of his wallet away. “This is gonna make me sound like a sap, but I thought you were somethin' else the moment you brained that tracksuit on the doorframe of your car. I knew I wanted you when you told me to get down and let you do your thing, and even though I've tried to stop, I've kinda wanted you a little more each day after that.”

I saw now that he had the twist-tie in his hand, the same one he'd stolen from a loaf of bread what seemed like forever ago. He was unbending it now from its figure-eight, working its curves smooth again into one single unbroken circle. I suddenly found it hard to breathe. “Holy... what are you doing?”

“Figured I'd just make it official, that's all. If that's what you want. Hope it is.”

If anyone had looked in on the little tableau we formed, they would have seen a woman perched up on a metal duct, bundled up in a long winter coat and trying not to shiver against the cold faced by a man too twitchy with nerves to feel the chill. They would have seen the woman go motionless with shock as the damn fool man took a knee in front of her and proffered what had to have been the most hastily improvised ring in the history of modern humanity. She was speechless, and he seemed to have trouble forming his words. “Eowyn, would you?”

And, sucker that I am, I said that I would.

Then I was scooped off of that duct box into a fierce embrace, picked up and spun a few times with my feet in the air until, laughing, I begged to be put back down again. And I was, but not before getting a long kiss and a whispered “Thank you.”

I held my hand up to get a better look at the twist tie and couldn't help giggling. “Good lord, my dad's gonna have an aneurysm.”

Clint shrugged, said, “He's just gonna have to deal with it. And, uh, don't worry. That's just temporary.”

“I like it, though. It's you.” This got an embarrassed glance off to the side and accompanying unintelligible mumble. “So... what now?”

A long exhalation, then, “Dinner, maybe? Didn't really think this thing through.” I gave him a long side-eye. “The whole asking thing. Everything up to and after it, I thought about. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have asked. But this right now, I dunno.”

I gathered up the empty beer bottles and headed for the roof access door. “Well, then, why don't we get some dollar slices and you can tell me what you've got in mind for 'after'?”

 --

“ _Eowyn, darling, is this a bad time?”_

“No, Mom. Why would it be?”

“ _I just know how close you two are. I'd hate to be... interrupting.”_

This got a snort from Clint. He was sprawled over the opposite end of the couch from me, reading a copy of _The Hobbit_ that he'd swiped from my personal library. I'd noticed other volumes missing from time to time since our trip to the boonies, and while part of me wondered at his sudden interest in nerdly reading material, I was secretly too delighted to question it for fear that I'd spook him away from it. He now marked his place in the book, set it aside, and made himself comfortable with a poorly-hidden smirk quirking his mouth.

I put the call on speaker. “Mom, you know I wouldn't answer the phone if that was happening. Come on now.”

A sigh. _“Oh, I suppose you're right. I bet you're wondering why I called, since we already talked at Christmas...”_

 _This should be good,_ Clint said, then muffled an “ow” as I kicked him scoldingly.

“Do you really need a reason to call, Mom?”

“ _I suppose I don't. I just, I don't know, got this feeling – like something really... good... had happened. You know how I get my feelings, right?”_

 _Oooh, feelings!_ I gave Clint a warning look that was ruined somewhat by my trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, I know. So what do you think caused your feeling?”

“ _Well, at first I thought it was something to do with your work. But the vibration didn't quite seem right, so I focused on it during my noon meditation...”_ A dramatic pause, then, _“He finally asked you, didn't he.”_

“Asked me what? You're being kinda vague, Mom.”

“ _And you're being silly, dear. You know what I'm talking about.”_

Clint shrugged. _Be nice, I guess._

“He did.” I winced and Clint snickered at the yelp of glee that came from my mom's end of the phone. We heard her talking to someone else for a moment. “What's Dad got to say about it?”

“ _Well, he's not saying a lot... wait... hrm. Something, something, 'carnie whackjob'... And now he's gonna burn a hole in the drapes with that glare of his. Aw, honey, it's not the end of the world... He's thrilled, Eowyn, even though he doesn't show it. You know how he is.”_

“I can feel the joy from here,” I muttered.

“ _Let him sulk. I'm sure he'll come around – he's just not happy about someone else finally carrying off his little girl.”_ Pause, then, _“I'm so happy for you, though. You got a real catch! Such vibrant masculine energy... and that tush. You could bounce a quarter off of it.”_ Her voice became distant again as she covered the mouthpiece. _“Oh, cool it, Gayle. You know I only have eyes for -”_ An awkward cough. _“Sorry, dearest. Where was I?”_

“You were describing the merits of Clint's backside.”

“ _Oh, yes. That. Well, along with that, he seems like he actually respects you and enjoys your company. Such a nice change after that stuffed shirt that you were dating before.”_

Clint grinned, said, _Aw. Love you too, strange hippie mom._

“That's a nice way of describing that jerk,” I muttered. “But I'd like to think that things turned out well enough.”

“ _Well enough?”_ Mom laughed. _“Now you're just being modest. Anyway, dear, I'm glad I called. I'll leave you to whatever you were up to. Love you so much.”_

“Love you too.” I waited until the call was over, then let out a short, gasping hoot of a laugh. “Strange hippie mom? You do realize that eventually she's gonna be your strange hippie mother-in-law.”

“Yeah, I know.” The grin got bigger. “But come on now, don't tell me you haven't thought the same thing. Noon meditations? Vibrations? 'Feelings'?” The last word got a mocking finger-waggle along with it. “She's a good person, though, and I can see where you get a lot of it. Steely-eyed batshit crazy, though, that's all from your dad.”

“Since when have I been batshit crazy?”

“You have your moments. Like when I thought you'd died, and then you came tearing out of that building all covered in blood with this look on your face that said you were there to kick ass and chew gum and that you were all outta gum. I have never been more happy to see you and more scared of you in the whole time I've known you.”

I put a hand to my chest in faux affront. “Me? What's to be scared of?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Uh, let's see here. For starters - ”

My phone rang again, and I glanced down to see who it was. “It's Val. Hold that thought.”

Valerie didn't even wait for me to say hello. As soon as the call connected, she came out swinging: _“Eowyn, what the actual hell?”_

I answered her accusation as gracefully as I could, which is to say not gracefully at all. “Um?”

“ _Don't 'um' me! You know what I'm talking about. You got engaged and you didn't tell me!”_

I frowned, puzzled. “How did you find out?”

“ _It's in that blog, dummy. Someone got a picture of you two out getting pizza a few nights ago and not only do you look like you're wearing a ring, it's got to be the most cheap-ass ring that I've ever seen. What the futz is that, honey, a twist tie?”_

“Yes, yes it is. And I didn't call you because... well, things came up.”

Clint tried to stifle an outburst of laughter and instead wound up choking on his own spit. When he was recovered enough to communicate, he said, _That's one way of saying it._

It took Valerie a moment to catch on, but she too figured out the subtext. _“That's the natural progression of things, I suppose, but still, you could've called me.”_ Pause, sigh, then, _“And not like you can't take care of yourself, but please let him know that if he screws this one up... I've got science on my side. Revenge will be swift, painful, nearly indistinguishable from natural processes, and undetectable on anything above a cellular level.”_

“Threats are more believable when they're not so long-winded, Val. Makes you sound like a Bond villain, and not in a good way.”

“ _Just tell him, all right? And he'd better get something better for you than a motherfutzing twist tie. Call me when you've got more in the way of plans.”_

“Will do.”

Then the edge was gone from her voice. _“I know it sounds like I'm not glad for you, honey, but I am. Bron was a D-list a-hole who got off on L.L. Bean catalogs and treated you like luggage. You definitely dodged a bullet.”_ A quiet laugh, then, _“Okay, that's all from me. Just remember what I said, all right?”_

I shut my phone off once the call disconnected and put it out of immediate reach on the coffee table, then buried my face in my hands and began to laugh in earnest. “Oh. My. God.” A puzzled noise from the other end of the couch. “Valerie just told me to tell you that if you screw things up, she'll kill you with science. First my mom and her vibrations and now this... you sure you still want in?”

I was expecting a sarcastic response, or in the very least an innuendo, but what I got instead humbled me. “In case you've forgotten, my dad was an abusive, alcoholic jerkwad who thrashed all of us and my mom just stood back and let it all happen... and, uh, both of them are dead, so there's that. My brother is a con, a felon, and an all-around prick who only helped me because he had something to get out of it – and he screwed me over and ran as soon as the coast was clear. So I pretty much didn't have a family.”

I felt a stone of guilt sink in my stomach. I hadn't meant to bring up his past or to make it look like I had it worse, but there it was... I curled up tighter, trying to hide my absolute embarrassment behind my arms. “God, Clint, I'm sorry – I didn't mean to - ”

“Hey. Lemme finish, okay?” The lack of harshness in his tone made me look up tentatively, confused. “I was gonna say that I didn't have a family... that is, until you showed up. Your friends and family might be ten different kinds of fruit off of the freakazoid tree and your dad is still thinkin' about whether or not he wants to shoot me and dump my body in Lake Superior with weights, but we're all weird together, so nobody's weird – and that's pretty damn cool .” He stopped to look at me for a long moment, then said, “I'm already 'in,' and that'll only change if you say so.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All prior snark aside, Eowyn of Rohan has to be one of my favorite literary characters. Her speech at the Battle of Pelennor Fields gives me chills whenever I read it, and I'm kind of sad that they couldn't include more of it in the film version of Return of the King. Ah well.
> 
> Also, I don't remember how accurate my math conversions were, but the fact remains that Clint is pretty damn strong for someone without powers.


	19. "It's not going to get better, is it.” (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly becoming "somebody" can be a rude awakening for a government agent accustomed to living a life as a nobody.

The calendar turned over to January and trudged listlessly through the snow and frost and slush towards February. And maybe it was the weather, but events were down during that period too and the team was left with a whole lot of nothing to do. And because they had nothing to do, I had nothing to clean up after. Not gonna lie, I enjoyed the change in pace. It was nice to have a breather. The only downside to this idleness is that it left people with more time to pry into my business.

_Just remember, Eo, you told yourself that this was a bad idea from the get-go,_ I grumbled, clicking 'delete' on the latest email asking me for an interview or, in the very least, just to answer a few questions. _It won't stop unless you end it._ I glanced without thinking to the framed picture that sat next to my phone – a shot of the two of us curled up on the couch at my parents' place, completely unaware that my mom had gotten out the camera until she'd sent me the print in the mail along with a few other shots that she'd taken during the course of that holiday gathering. As stressful as that had been, the trip had gone better than I'd thought it would. _If anyone ends this, it won't be me._

The only reason I knew that someone had come into my office was because of the squeak of the door hinges. I glanced up from my computer to see a red-haired woman in tight black tactical leathers pad in through the door, a bundle of folders tucked under one arm, her footfalls making scarcely a sound in the thick pile of the carpet. “Afternoon, Agent Romanoff. Can I help you with something?”

“I hear you have good tea. May I?”

“Sure. The best stuff is in the metal canister to the left of the kettle.” I deleted another email, then another, watching her out of the corner of my eye. Natasha was one of the few on the team whom I'd had yet to encounter since my transfer, and based on what I knew of her it seemed unlikely that she'd come into my office just for refreshments. She opened the canister, took an appreciative sniff, and if I wasn't mistaken I thought I saw a tiny smile. “Caravan tea. I keep it for long nights in the office – help yourself.”

“I think I will. Thank you.”

I continued my observations while going through the flood of emails in my inbox. It seemed like everyone and their mother had put their eyes on those photos that Val had told me about, and now everyone and their mother wanted to know what was going on. It had been interesting enough to explain it to the rest of the team. Complete strangers, though? _And how the futz did they get my personal email?_ “Ugh, I need to tighten my spam filter,” I muttered.

“The part of the fairy tale that they don't tell you about.” Natasha turned the electric kettle on after checking the water level, then put a tea bag in each of two cups. “Makes you long for the days when we weren't so closely connected. Now it is so easy to reach out and touch someone, both for good and for bad.”

I snorted. “Then I won't tell you what's been in half of these emails.”

“I can imagine. Half of them want to know how you did it, half of them want to kill you for doing it. As if your life is theirs to dictate simply because it's been put on display. But that's the risk you chose to take, isn't it?”

“I guess it is. And it's not going to get better, is it.”

Again the smile, but no response. The kettle clicked off a few minutes later once the water finished boiling. Natasha poured the water into the cups and brought them over to my desk. “It's funny to watch,” she said. “You've spent your life pretending to be nobody and you've actually started to think that's true. It's an interesting thing when we start to believe our own lies.” The first folder was then opened, and I saw that it was my personnel file from SHIELD. “High marks from the Academy, and even though you're described as stubborn and sarcastic to a fault, they were willing to overlook that because you get results.” She paused long enough to take the bag out of her cup and flick it into the garbage. A test sip of the drink, an approving nod. “You just see all of this as doing your job. But we aren't the first beneficiaries of your singlemindedness.”

My personnel file was pushed aside and the one beneath it opened. The folder was worn, its edges frayed, and it was packed full of papers and what appeared to be photographs. I felt a chill when I realized that those photos were surveillance stills ranging from the graininess of analog film to the crispness of digital. “I'm sure you suspected that my people had something like this on you – or in the very least you were warned of it in your prior career. You've acted far more carefully than many of your peers, and for that you should be commended. Perhaps even grateful.” I caught a glimpse of harried notes scrawled in the margin of a Polaroid, the Cyrillic script barely legible. “You haven't been a nobody for a long time, Agent, and this is just another chapter in your story. I would not be too concerned over the threats of children.”

It didn't take a genius to see Natasha's point. She closed the second dossier, thanked me for the tea and for my time, then left just as quietly as she'd arrived. I kicked back in my chair and sipped at my own drink, thankful that this warning had only been verbal and had not resulted in a pummeling like I'd gotten at the hands of Bobbi. “Makes me feel like Scott Pilgrim, though,” I grumbled into my cup. “How many more evil exes am I gonna have to deal with?”

Those words had barely come out of my mouth when my personal cell rang. It wasn't a number that I recognized, so I was wary of it. “Hello?”

“ _Eowyn Foley? Good afternoon, this is Dr. Bergen from the Urgent Care department at Metropolitan.”_

My heart sank, but I still went through the pleasantries even though I had a feeling what he was calling about. “Afternoon, Doctor. How can I help you?”

“ _Your name and contact information were on a card in the wallet of a patient we just admitted, one Clint - ”_

“Barton. Yes, I know him. What happened – is he all right?”

“ _He took a nasty fall and had to be brought in for treatment. Stable, for now, but pretty banged up. Would you mind coming in at your earliest convenience?”_

I pulled up my desktop calendar. The afternoon was empty, so I put a quick note on it in case anyone needed to find me and then shut down my terminal. “On my way now, Doc. Thanks.”

Pausing only to throw on some black yoga pants and a hoodie over my tac gear so as not to cause undue alarm among possible witnesses, I skipped the drive and instead took a cab to the hospital so that I could get there more quickly. My mind thrummed with questions throughout the trip. He'd been out on a mission, supposedly nothing more than a quick smash-and-grab, so how had he managed a fall bad enough to need treatment in a hospital? And what exactly had the doctor meant by “pretty banged up?” Fine clinical terminology, that.

After getting my visitor's pass, I headed to Urgent Care and was directed to have a seat in the waiting room. By my reckoning, I was there for about three hours. I went through two sodas and four chapters of the latest Dresden Files book, and it was not a moment too soon when a nurse called me back. “Sorry it took so long, Ms. Foley. The doctor's in with him now and can answer any questions that you might have.”

I thanked her and let her guide me to the appropriate room. The doctor, hearing us approach, waved me in. “Here she is, Mr. Barton, just as I said. Come on in, Ms. Foley.” I needed no further encouragement and rushed in – then stopped short when I got a look at Clint. Clint lifted his hand a few inches in a weak wave and offered a bleary smile that did nothing to reassure me of his impending recovery. “I know he looks a bit worse for wear, ma'am, but I can assure you that he'll be fine. He just took a spill down some stairs at a subway station.” A glance down at his clipboard. “Fortunately for him, he knows how to take a fall. Could've been a lot worse.”

I took another look at Clint and, based on the amount of him that was either stitched, bandaged, or covered in plaster, I found that statement hard to believe. “What's the damage?”

“Confined to the left side, primarily, due to the nature of his fall. Two cracked ribs, fractured femur, fractured ulna, sprained wrist, dislocated shoulder. Possible concussion. Various contusions and lacerations as well, but I'm guessing that those were sustained in the line of duty before the fall.” The doctor hung the clipboard back on the foot of the bed, said, “We'll need to keep him here for a little bit to make sure that things heal up right, but we'll take good care of him and he'll be back home in no time. Now, if there aren't any questions for me, I'll leave you two for a little bit.”

“None from me, Doctor,” I said. “Thank you.”

The doctor excused himself as promised. I took a careful seat on the edge of the bed and stayed quiet for a moment, not sure what to say. Finally from next to me I heard, “You're lookin' at me like I'm missin' an arm or somethin'. N'even though you're cute when you're all worried, I'll be okay. M'still all here, m'not dead, so stoppit, 'kay?” Clint curled his fingers around mine, the gesture clumsy because of bandages, but still comforting in its own way. He gave a light squeeze. “They gave me some fancy painkillers, too, so I'm feelin' just peachy.”

The pain radiated out from him like body heat and I desperately wanted to do something about it. But I knew that I couldn't. My face must've given my emotions away, too, because Clint let out a short, frustrated huff and mumbled, “Don' even think about it, you. I know you can, but I don' want you gettin' in trouble because of me. Got it?”

I cautiously squeezed his fingers, said, “Of all the times for you to make sense, Clint, why's it gotta be now?”

“I might not have a lot to work with up in the brain case, but even I know when somethin's a really bad idea. You know that.” I couldn't help a laugh at this, one that he weakly echoed. “See? Nothin' to worry about. Now, uh, do me a favor and take a look in the bag where they tossed my stuff. Somethin' in there for you.”

I got up and searched through the bag, cringing at the mess the fall had made of his work clothes. Towards the bottom of the bag, though, my fingers brushed against something that made my breath catch in my throat. A hard case, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, covered in velvet. I brought it out and held it up questioningly, getting a thumbs-up in response.

“See, all this time I've been bringin' you rocks. How's a real one sound? Go on, have a look.”

I opened up the case and saw a thin band worked out of darkish-gray metal, a square-cut diamond set flush with the surface of the band so as not to snag on anything. “S'made outta titanium, seein' as you like to hit things. If you like this one, you can toss the twist tie.”

“Oh, I love it. But I'm keeping the twist tie – like I said, it's you.”

“So you still wanna do this, then?”

“You think I'm gonna change my mind just 'cause you got a couple new dents in you?” I took the twist tie off of my finger and put it in a pocket for safekeeping. “I'm not gonna give up a good thing just because someone – or something – decided to bowl you down a flight of stairs.”

If I'd been paying attention, I would have noticed that the nurse who'd originally brought me back had paused outside the door, was listening in on the conversation, and had beckoned another nurse to join her. But my concern was elsewhere, obviously. “They want to keep me here for a few weeks at least. Probably gonna miss your birthday again. Was gonna try to do something special this year, too, make it a big show, 'cause you're my princess n'you deserve it. But I keep screwin' up.”

I blinked. _Princess? Oof, those painkillers must be kicking in._ “It's not like you threw yourself down those stairs. If that's the case, then we need to have a whole 'nother talk once you get out of here.”

“So we're really doin' this. All right. Might need some help, but – your hand, please?”

If I'd been paying attention then, I'd have heard the giggling and whispering from the audience in the hall – now numbering two nurses, three interns, and a janitor since apparently it was a slow day in Urgent Care – as they traded commentary on the scene and jockeyed to get a better view.

“Y'know what? I'm lookin' forward to this. Tried it once already, screwed that up. But m'gonna try harder this time. Promise.” Clint absently ran his fingers across the band, now on my hand in the place that the twist tie had earlier occupied. He then looked up at me with that same bleary grin of before, added, “And y'know what else? We're gonna make some damn beautiful babies. And if they're half as badass as their parents...”

I couldn't help grinning too. “Look out, world .” I leaned down and lightly brushed my lips across his. “Why don't you get some sleep now?”

“Sounds good.” He sighed contentedly and let his eyes drift shut.

In the silence that followed, I became aware of the uncomfortable shuffling of feet out in the hall and looked up to see the crowd that had gathered. I allowed myself a rueful smile, then placed a finger across my lips in the universal gesture for “quiet.”


	20. "Small things, right?" (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'd think that recovering from a nasty injury would be easier when you're living with someone who has healing powers - but is it, really?

“ _For the last time, Clint, no – I'm not going to buy lingerie for your girlfriend - ”_

“Fiancee,” I said, “and why not? On the list of things that I could be asking you to do for me, this one's pretty safe.”

I could almost hear Kate rolling her eyes over the phone. _“Technically, you're right. But it's wrong on a few levels: one, it's not really a gift for her so much as it is for you, and two, even as hot as she might be, thinking of what you're gonna do to get her out of it is just ew.”_

“But it's for her birthday! I've gotta do somethin' to make it up to her, since we both know what happened on the last one.”

“ _Like either of us need a reminder.”_ A long sigh. _“Fine, I'll figure something out. You can take the credit and I'll just add it to the long list of things that you owe me for. Sound good?”_

“You're a lifesaver, Katie-Kate.”

“ _Understatement of the century and you know it. Just sit back and let the master work.”_

I turned on the news after she hung up. “Looks like you'll have some time to work on it,” I grumbled. “Unless, of course, they ask you to help out...” Something about some kind of mass hysteria, monster traffic jams... I fell asleep.

The next thing I knew, Kate was knocking on the doorframe. “Hey. Did as you asked.” She put a bag and a small paper box on the nightstand, and it made something inside me clench when I saw that the bag was from some fancy-schmancy department store. “Cashmere scarf – practical for winter, but also stylish. It's soft and warm and she'll think of you whenever she wears it. So sweet that I almost threw up in my mouth picking it out, so I think it'll work. Keep your mitts off the box. It's got a chocolate-vanilla fancy-ass cupcake in it from Magnolia with a butt-ton of sprinkles. No candles because fire's a no-go in hospitals. Does this all work for you?”

I grinned. “Better than you know.”

“Ugh. Just please don't tell me that I need to stick around for when you give it to her.”

“Nah. I'll leave it to your imagination.”

I drifted off again right after Kate left. Couldn't say much about the dreams that happened except to say that they weren't good ones, and it was only the light touch of a hand on my arm that snapped me out of it. I opened my eyes to see Eo leaning over me, and even though there wasn't much light left in the room I could see the deep worry lines on her forehead. “Hey, mister,” she said. “Sorry I'm so late. Long day.”

I scooted as much as I could to give her a space to sit on the edge of the bed, and she sank down next to me with a tired grunt. “Yeah, I saw some of it on the news. Lemme guess – AIM, up to their usual shenanigans?”

A weak laugh. “Subliminal mind-control messages sent through GPS. All they did was make people even angrier out on the road... all kinds of ugly. It's almost like they knew it was my birthday.” Her raggedy sweatshirt and shower-damp hair were a surprising contrast to the polished image that Eo usually insisted on presenting to the public, and the slump of her shoulders gave away just how exhausted she really was. “And we still haven't found the thing that tried to play ten-pin with you. We've got some leads, but...” Sigh, then, “I'm half tempted to just go and track it down myself and give it a little taste of its own medicine.”

I winced and sucked the air in through my teeth. “Please don't.”

Eo snorted. “Aw, you're no fun.”

“I'm lots of fun and you know it.” She turned red and looked up at the ceiling, but I could see that she was also trying to hide a smile. “I just can't be a lot of fun like this. But once I get out of here...”

“Your leg will still be healing, so I'll just have to be careful.”

“I like the way you think. Y'know, if there wasn't the chance of a nurse walking in on us, I'd just tell you to shut the door and – _ow!_ ” Eo guessed where I was going with this and smacked my shoulder. “And you tell me that I'm no fun. Sheesh.”

“This is a hospital, not a hotel,” she muttered. “But yeah, the whole sleeping alone thing? Not cutting it. When are they letting you out of here?”

“The quickest they could put me in for surgery is day after tomorrow. Then they want to keep me a few more days after that to make sure I'm doing all right.” The worry lines started to show up again and would've stayed if I hadn't reached up to give her a quick tap on the nose. “Hey, you, stoppit. They're just puttin' some pins and stuff in my leg to make it heal right. Nothin' serious.”

Eo let out a long sigh. “If you say so. I know I can't fix it, but can I at least take the edge off?”

Looking at her, it was impossible to miss the dark circles under her eyes – and even though I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, I'd be a total dummy not to know that I'd helped to put them there. “Sure. But before that, it's your birthday – right? Got somethin' for you.”

Turns out I'd been right in letting Kate take care of this for once. The look on Eo's face when she opened up that fancy-schmancy department store bag and eased apart the tissue paper wrapping inside of it and carefully unfolded a length of light purple with just the smallest amount of sparkle... the way she smiled at me as she looped it around her neck, I dunno, I kinda forgot how much everything hurt for a minute. She leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. “I'm going to guess that you asked Kate to do you a favor and do some shopping for you?” I didn't say anything, just grinned sheepishly. “I know that wasn't your first choice. Still, thank you. I love it.”

I futzing hate hospitals, but this time it wasn't so bad. The few staff members who walked by that evening did a fine job pretending that they didn't see the two of us together on the bed. As nice as it was, though, I knew that she was soaking up my pain and adding it to her own so that I could rest easier. Am I a lucky bastard or what? You bet I am. Doesn't mean I felt good about it, but I let her do it so that she'd worry a little less. Things you do for people you care about, right? It's a screwy world and you grab what peace you can, even if it's in a hospital bed with a sweet lady visiting you for a few hours, watching crap TV and sharing a fancy-ass cupcake.

\-- 

Stairs. So many motherfutzing stairs... I found myself wishing that I'd done the legwork to get an elevator put in as I stopped at yet another landing to catch my breath. Surgery'd gone well, and the doctors had insisted that I start putting weight on it as soon as I could so I wouldn't lose muscle tone. They'd also ordered crutches for me for the first month afterward, just to be safe, and I cussed their strong sense of safety with each wobbly step until I got the hang of moving again.

I strongly debated chucking the damn things as soon as I got out the door of the hospital, too, and would've if Eo hadn't shut me up with one of her murder glares. “Don't you dare, Clinton Francis,” she growled once we'd reached the privacy of her car. “Since I can't fix you, you're going to do exactly what those doctors tell you to do. And if you even think about chucking your crutches, I'm gonna pick one of 'em right back up and beat your punk ass with it right back into the hospital. We clear?”

Eo sounded so much like her father in that moment that it gave me chills, and I felt a smidgen of pity for any junior sailor who'd found themselves on the business end of that. But I was still in an ornery kind of mood and didn't feel ready to just roll over and obey. “Easy there, Gunny. I'm not one of your recruits.”

I must've hit a nerve because her nostrils flared and her jawline tensed up like she was ready to go for my throat. “I get the reference, but I'm no jarhead. Don't lower me to their level.”

“Ooooh. Sor-ry.” I huffed out an annoyed sigh, muttered, “God. Thought you'd be happy to see me finally getting out of there.”

“I am, Clint. Considering the alternative, I'm thrilled. But what sort of crappy gift do I have if I can't use it to help you? I get to watch you grumble and snarl and cuss your way to getting better and I can't do a damn thing to speed the process because we don't want to risk me getting caught. Hell, I can't really help anyone without the chance of getting locked up. So please, just stick to the damned crutches.”

That was the last thing that she said on the entire drive home. I wanted to vent my irritation, but going after someone who doesn't want to fight back? No fun to it. Whatever anger Eo had allowed to flare up was buried again under one of the creepy-calm faces that she usually only wore when people were pissing her off at work and I knew when she'd reached that point that her goat well and truly couldn't be gotten, even by a skilled goat-getter like me. So I shoved my mood to the back of my brain and in the quiet that followed I got to thinking about what she'd said. I could be as stubborn as I wanted, as angry as I wanted, but it made me look like – well, like a punk-ass kid. Bitching about everything made me feel better for a minute, sure, but my venting was hurting the one person who really wanted to help and couldn't.

_So you won't let her fix you because you don't want to lose her? Stop being an ass and work with her, then, and let her help out in ways that won't get her turned into a lab rat. That's all she wants to do, and it's because she cares. Let her care._

I hate it when I make sense like that. And with all of that in mind, I took my frustration out on the stairs – step by step, hauling myself up. Not like I couldn't lift my own weight, but this was just... embarrassing. Eo walked ahead of me and let me have my pride as well as something nice to look at in order to distract me from my growing aggravation. That soon turned into a grim kind of humor as I realized I had fewer stairs to climb to my new digs. _At least it's not all the way up to the top of the building. Small things, right?_

She left the door open for me and closed it once I'd gone through. I had just enough energy to schlump over to the couch and flop down, dropping the crutches just within reach in case I needed them. Lucky heard my arrival and trotted over for some attention, giving happy greeting licks and tail-wagging in return for my tired ear-scratches. I'd been gone for just about three weeks and I was just as happy to see my dog again as he was to see me. Bacchus flicked an ear in my direction to let me know he knew I was back, then went back to sleep on top of the bookcase. Damn cat.

I turned on the TV but only partly watched whatever was on. Eo was puttering around in the kitchen; I was half-tempted to ask her to make me something, but I didn't want to make her mood worse. I was pleasantly surprised when she came back out a few minutes later with a sandwich on a plate and a glass of water, both of which she put within my reach on the coffee table without a word. She then went into the smaller bedroom, her home office, and I heard her talking on the phone. Couldn't catch the conversation, though, not without turning the TV down or off and making her suspicious. So I ate the food she'd brought me and wondered how she'd guessed that I'd be hungry, then dozed off. As awkward as the return had been, it was still nice to be back in my own home.

It was dark in the living room when I woke up again, the only bright light coming from the breakfast nook where Eo sat sipping a mug of tea and reading a magazine. She'd tossed the blanket from the back of the couch over me while I'd snoozed, had pulled the shades down over the windows, and had turned the volume down on the TV to a low drone that she knew would help me sleep. I scootched back a little so I could prop myself up and watch her for a while, and if I listened I could hear her quietly half-singing along to something on the radio.

“Lately I've been, I've been losin' sleep, dreamin' about the things that we could be...” She turned a page, squinted down at it, shook her head. “But baby I've been, I've been prayin' hard. Said no more countin' dollars, we'll be countin' stars ...” A look of mixed amazement and disgust crossed Eo's face now, a look of _what the futz_ if I knew it. She slapped the magazine shut, picked it up by its edges, and dropped it in the recycle bin with a dramatic flair. The mug went in the sink and the radio was turned off, followed soon after by the light. I watched her move across the living room in the low glow of the TV set. Eo paused by the bookcase, reached up and tugged on Bacchus' paw. The stretch was enough to make her pajama pants settle slightly lower on her hips – _wait, are those mine?_ \- and to hike up her shirt, exposing her midriff. The cat stirred and grumbled in his sleep but curled his paw around her finger, the massive claws grazing but not cutting into the skin.

I must've laughed at this oddly gentle display from the animal, because Eo looked over her shoulder at me and asked, “You want to sleep there tonight, or are you coming to bed?”

“D'you even need to ask that?” I pushed myself up to sitting and shucked the blanket off of me so I could fold it and put it back in its place. “ 'Sides, I need to get my pants back. What is it with you 'n stealing my clothes, anyway?”

“And I keep telling you, it's not stealing if you leave it lying around all over the place where anyone can swipe it.” Eo untied the string holding the pants around her hips and let them drop to the floor, where she then kicked them up into the air with her foot and tossed them towards me. “If you really want them, there they are.”

Tiny purple underwear. She was wearing tiny purple underwear, and that was all the motivation I needed to haul myself up off of the couch and start hopping after her. Eo stopped with one hand on the bedroom door and looked back over her shoulder again. “I don't hear crutches.”

I bit back a growl of annoyance and picked up the damn crutches off of the floor, jammed them under my armpits and then made my way back across the living room. But what happened once I finished that trip was worth the effort. Y'know, if I got such a heroic welcome each time I got back from the hospital, I'd go there more often -

No, no I wouldn't. Still hate hospitals.

But anyway. I didn't say no to getting a little bit of help getting undressed. As for the rest? Let's just say that I haven't lost my touch when it comes to balancing acts. Totally worth it, though, to hear that laughing protest about the scrape of my five-o'clock shadow against her neck. And about those tiny purple underwear – well, I took 'em off with my teeth. Though I might've been kinda gimpy, let it not be said that I didn't bring my A-game.

\--

I'm amazed that Eo slept through my attempts to take a shower the next morning. It also puzzled me that she wasn't already awake and getting ready for work, but she hadn't set an alarm and she wasn't the kind to forget something like that. She did, however, get up when she heard me making a racket in the kitchen trying to put something together for breakfast. It took her a minute to join me, and in the time before she got there I got a quick peek into the recycle bin to see what had bothered her so much.

“Good, s'just you.” She yawned and stretched and rubbed at a sore spot on her neck, one that when I looked closer I realized looked like a bite mark. Whoopsie. “Thought the kitchen was being invaded by a posse of raccoons or something.”

“Not here in the city, no,” I replied. “Rats, more like it. Those little punks are kinda scary. Got their own gangs...” God, I'd forgot how much it sucked to try to get anything done around the house with crutches, but I wasn't about to get into that fight again. “Saw what you threw in the recycle bin. What's up with that?”

Eo made a show of fussing with the coffee pot, but I didn't miss the flush of embarrassment on her face. “You weren't supposed to see that.”

“So I caught you looking at one of those foofy wedding magazines. So what?”

She clicked the switch to start the pot, then got two mugs out of the cabinet. Still didn't look at me. “Just... I don't know. Kind of disappointed. Not sure what I expected, really.” Pause, sigh, then, “They want you to spend all of this money for one perfect day, and then people get the idea that everything after that is going to be just as pretty when it's really not. What a load of crap.” Something about her tone made me nervous. But then: “I tossed it because I decided I wasn't gonna buy into that. I don't want or need someone else's idea of perfect – I've already got what I want.”

“So you don't want a cathedral and a thousand guests and doves and a six-tier cake and a big fluffy dress?” A weak side-glare from Eo. “And you've gotta admit, I'd look damn good in tails. A right proper gentleman.” An unladylike snort this time. “Aw, c'mon. No? Well, uh, since it's gonna take a while for this leg to heal right – how about a cane? I'd be one dapper mofo with a cane.”

Eo turned to face me fully, her arms folded across her chest. “Four to six months, Clint.” I made a confused noise. “That's how long it takes a broken femur to heal on average. You really want to do this before you're back to one hundred percent?”

I gave her my best scuzzy grin, said, “One hundred percent? Depends on what category you're judging, honey.”

And bless her, she actually facepalmed. “God almighty, I said yes to this man.”

“Damn right you did.”

 


	21. “It's not a threat. Just an observation.” (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony confronts Clint about Agent Foley's nascent abilities.

“Don't know what to say here, Clint, other than I'm kind of impressed. She's a master of the bureaucratic cha-cha – well, she'd have to be in order to be allowed to take time out of the office to keep an eye on you – and, more importantly, she's managed to keep us off of the SHIELD mothership's radar pretty much ever since she started here.” Tony didn't offer me a seat, but I took one anyway. Not like he noticed. His attention was on the set of blueprints that I'd brought in with me, the blueprints for my building that had taken a certain degree of shady dealing to acquire which I won't discuss here. “Guess what I'm trying to say is, don't mess this one up. It's nice being able to breathe around here for once.”

I snorted. “The leg's healing up nice, Tony. Thanks for asking.”

“Yeah, about that. How much longer do they think it's gonna take?”

“It's March, right?” An affirmative mumble from Tony. “'Nother two months, at least. Maybe two more after that. Depends on a lot of things. We'll see.”

“And you get to hop around on crutches that whole time?”

“Might get a cane if things're going well enough.”

This got a smile. Then, after a long pause, Tony said, “Four to six months on crutches in a building with no elevator – that's got to be a pain.”

“Kinda why I'm asking you if there's any way I could get one put in. Even though buildings aren't really your thing.”

“Tch. Buildings can be my thing if I want them to be.” Tony swiped the blueprints off to the side and I heard him typing for a few seconds, doing a file search if what I saw flash by on the display was any clue. “Not that I'm against a good workout, but it's gotta be tiresome to haul yourself around like that when you could just – I don't know, ask someone to take care of it.”

As a guy who fails at casual pretty much all the time, I knew that Tony was trying to dance around something big. _Careful, Hawkeye. He's goin' somewhere with this, and it's nowhere you wanna be._ “You got somethin' fancy in your workshop that might help me out?”

“I don't, but you do.” I gave him my best clueless look and shrug. Usually pretty convincing, but... not this time. Tony sighed. “I was kinda hoping not to show you this, knowing how you've got that tough dude image to uphold. That said...”

A video clip flashed into view, and it took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at. “ _You getting all of this, Jarvis?”_ Eo's voice. The camera slowly turned and I recognized the laboratory that we'd raided several months back – this video feed no doubt coming from those fancy glasses that she'd asked Tony to put together for her after seeing mine. I hadn't had much of a chance to take a good look at the place at the time, things being the way they were, and looking at it now made my skin crawl.

Why'd we let her go in there by herself? Oh yeah, I'd been pissed off at her over stupid crap, that's why. I'd figured she was a grown woman capable of taking care of herself, and besides, all of her fancy-pants scanners said there wasn't anything in there that could hurt her. Never mind that the room was packed full of cliches from horror movies from the body parts in jars down to the critter on the slab. Everything about that place said bad and dangerous, but my head'd been too far up my own ass to see that.

I couldn't hide a laugh as I listened to her chat with Jarvis. I'd seen her work personality, that icy-cold efficiency that she put on like a second face when she had to deal with the public, but this was a new side to that: smart, snarky, and... kinda hot. I knew what was coming in this video, though, and it was hard as hell for me to keep that dread off of my face as I watched.

“ _And he can't just ask me himself?”_ Eo sighed after saying this and I gave myself a good mental kick. _“...no signs of life. Whatever this thing is, as gnarly as it is, they just couldn't get it to work.”_ Jess relayed my next question, which got an annoyed-sounding _“Yes, on all frequencies. Even on the ones that he hasn't figured out how to use yet.”_

“Thanks, honey,” I muttered. Tony snorted. “Not my fault there's no instruction manual for them, just sayin'.”

Horror flicks aren't my favorite – I'll watch 'em every now and then if I'm in the mood for it – but knowing that what I was watching was real and had happened to someone I happen to like a lot just made my stomach go sour. As the seconds passed and I saw what she'd seen I couldn't stop myself from wondering if things would've gone differently if I'd been there. At least the thing would've had another target. But then it might've been me fighting to breathe as the thing shredded my innards and it would've been her with my blood on her hands trying to put me back together and pleading with me not to die and her being told to get a move on because there was nothing else that she could do -

“Real Oscar-worthy performance from you there, I think. 'Just stay awake!' Went right for the heartstrings. But here's where things get... weird.” Eo lay on her back, her camera pointed at the ceiling, and the sounds of chaos in the background as Jess and I tried to kill the thing we thought had killed her were plain to hear. “I'm gonna skip forward since this goes on for the next... hm, ten minutes or so.” Tony did just that, pressing play just as the camera started to move again. Eo sat up, mumbling in surprise as she looked down at the mess that her torso should've been and wasn't. She moved the bloody shreds of her tac suit aside to get a better look at her wounds, then stopped to listen to what was going on around her.

“You know what happens after that. You're fighting the Frankenbeast – nice name for it – outside, things aren't looking good, and all of a sudden the girl you just gave up for dead comes charging out and tackles the thing and somehow makes it suffer the same injuries that it gave to her. That gives you the opportunity that you need in order to kill it and the day is saved.” Tony shut off the video feed and sat back in his chair, looking at me in a thoughtful way that I didn't like at all. “Your dearest Agent Foley came back from the brink of death. I don't think a broken leg should be too hard for her to fix.”

I didn't know what to say to this, so I followed my gut and did the smart thing for once and didn't say anything. That smoothly dangerous voice whispered at the edge of my thoughts, telling me things I didn't want to hear. _Label it, hide it, put it in a box... Or bury it. They'll bury her because they can't control her. You brought this on her, this is your fault -_

“Shut _up_!” It was only when I opened my eyes again and saw Tony looking at me strangely that I realized I'd said that out loud. “Dammit.”

“I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that her Lazarus act is something relatively new, and that you've kept it a secret because you didn't want anything else to happen to her. Getting warm?”

“Loki did something to her because he saw the memory of us talking about her in my head. He also told me that if the wrong people found out, they'd probably kill her or in the very least lock her up for the rest of her life. I won't have that on my hands... even if we weren't, well, us.”

“Admirable, if a little bit misguided.” The look I gave Tony wasn't nice, but he shrugged it off. “I'm not the 'wrong people' here, Clint. Not this time, anyway. I'm not gonna turn her in.”

I wanted to believe him, I really did. But I still heard that voice telling me not to trust him and my thoughts ran off along with my mouth before what small common sense I had could catch up and limit the damage. “And why not? You want to take her apart yourself, don't you, see what makes her tick.”

“No. I'm curious, sure, but I'm not that twisted. She deserves a safe space to figure out how to use her gifts and we can give her that here. But outside of here? Who knows.”

It all sounded so reasonable. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you should be really careful when a slick talker starts sounding reasonable. It's a basic trick, all part of the show, and I know a thing or two about that. I reached up to rub my face, muffling a groan with my hands and wondering why every part of me suddenly felt so old and tired and heavy. “I'll think about it.”

“You don't know how much time she has before someone finds out - ”

This hit me like a splash of cold water. I leaned forward in my seat without even really thinking about it, growled, “S'that a threat?”

Tony at least had the sense to see that he'd spoken poorly. “It's not a threat. Just an observation.”

“Well, observe that I'm gonna break my foot off in your ass if anything bad happens because of that video. I said I'm gonna think about it.”

Eo was not oblivious to the tension in the air when she came to collect me a little while later, but she chose not to say anything. She instead looked over to Tony's desk where he again had the blueprints up and was making notes and thinking aloud. “Oh, neat. Seeing if you can get an elevator put in?”

“Thinking about it.” I looked past Tony to make sure that he didn't miss the message. He gave me the tiniest of nods.

 --

And I did. It was almost impossible not to when that video'd kicked up dust in my brain that I'd done my best to let settle. I'd seen the light going out in her eyes and made the decision to leave Eo behind because of the needs of the greater good, and her coming back and saving my ass had been an impossible gift that I'd be stupid not to want to protect with every cell in my body. And Tony did have a point – working with the team would give her a safe place to focus that gift and make it stronger and more effective. But could you blame me for being leery? Asgardian mindfutzery aside, as I've said, I don't trust reasonable men.

Maybe Tony hadn't figured out what he could gain from this and was just trying to hedge his bets until he found his advantage. If that was the case, I needed to put my thinking hat on and figure out what his game was, try to get a few steps ahead of him so I could get Eo out of the way of whatever he had planned -

Her low laugh broke into my train of thought. I blinked a few times and opened my eyes, glanced over to where she sat up against her pillows with her book. “What's so funny?”

“You've got something heavy on your mind, that's all. I can hear your brain creaking under the stress, and it's been that way since we got home.” Eo marked her place in her book, set it aside on the nightstand, and shifted in bed so that she faced me fully. “Anything I can help with?”

“You do enough already, hon, so don't worry about this one.”

“Telling me not to worry when you're rubbing your brain cells together so hard I'm surprised your hair's not catching fire? I sleep right next to you, so of course I'm gonna worry. S'what I do.” Eo reached over and ran her fingers over my scalp and through my hair, sending tingles prickling across my skin. “But if you want me to butt out, I'll respect that.”

“It's not that. Just been thinking...” I let out a long sigh. “Six months is a long time.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Both of us've got better things to do than sit around and wait for me to not be busted up. So I've been thinking... maybe you could just, I dunno, nudge things along a little? Not fix 'em completely, because that'd just make people ask questions, just kinda speed it up.” Eo looked skeptical about this, and she had every reason to be. “I want to be able to dance with you, that's all. S'that okay?”

That wasn't the main reason, but it was the one Eo'd most likely believe. And it worked. She smiled, said, “Yeah, that's okay. And I'd be happy to.”

I hated myself a little – okay, a lot – for asking that of her, but two things made it less difficult of a decision to make. One, I could almost see the relief on her face as she peeled the covers back and laid her hand over the long scar on my thigh. Two, I wouldn't be much of a protector in my current banged-up state. I didn't want to put her in any bigger danger than she was already in, but I also didn't want to leave her vulnerable.

She closed her eyes, took a few slow breaths to focus, and then... nothing. Not sure what I expected, really, since I hadn't asked her to get rid of the injury. But then I looked at her left leg, exposed except for a pair of borrowed boxers, and saw the faint ghost of that same scar appear on the skin. “That should help a little,” Eo said. She opened her eyes again and saw me staring, the regret on my face, and she snorted. “I told you that's how it works, so stop beating yourself up over it, all right?”

I knew better than to argue.


	22. "A lady never kisses and tells" (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the night before her wedding, but Agent Foley must first make one quick stop back at the office.

“Can't believe I'm being kicked out of my own apartment.”

“It's not just your apartment, _durak,_ ” I shot back. “Besides, it's only for one night. Tradition and all that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Tradition.”

Clint appeared in the kitchen a moment later. Val looked up from painting my nails long enough to smile and shake her head. “I'm not gonna let her run off,” she told him. “Don't worry.”

“M'not worried.” He rested his hand on my shoulder and gave a light squeeze. “Four p.m. tomorrow, rooftop. I'll be the good-lookin' guy in the suit with the dog.” I then found myself on the receiving end of a kiss that made me strongly wish I wasn't insisting on adhering to superstition and tradition. It only ended when Valerie reminded us of her presence with an awkward cough. “See ya soon, missus.”

If I wouldn't have risked messing up the masterful manicure that Val had spent so much time and effort crafting, I would have buried my face in my hands to hide the flush of pleasurable embarrassment that followed Clint's departure. As it was, I was left to stare down at the kitchen table as if I found something about the wood grain immensely fascinating. Valerie laughed, said, “Gotta hand it to you, Eowyn. Of all the time that I've known you, this has got to be the craziest thing that you've done.”

“Even crazier than the second year Academy dorm wars when I got you to distract the field ops guys with a homebrewed flashbang so that I could steal their drawers and run them up the flagpole?”

This got a grin from my friend as she remembered. “The only mark on an otherwise flawless disciplinary record. Totally worth it, though, to see you scrambling across the quad with a duffel full of stolen underwear, doing your best Crocodile Hunter: 'They're angry, Val! Run for your life!'”

“But we did win.”

“We did. A rare joint victory for sciences and administrative logistics, and the probable cause of the installation of cipher locks on the field ops dorm laundry rooms.” Val eased the polish brush along the nail on my pinkie with meticulous detail, then put it back in its bottle and sat back to admire her work. “Let's face it, Eo – you might be marrying a human disaster area, but nothing you do can scare him. Hell, if he'd been there for the dorm wars, he probably would've helped you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don't give him any ideas.”

Valerie shrugged. “It's not like there's any actual record of it. Too bad – all of our hard work, reduced to the stuff of urban legend.” She sighed in mock disappointment... and then a smug, catlike smile appeared on her face. “Speaking of legends, though, I wonder how your mister would take it if he knew that he was taking the Maneater off of the market?”

I blinked. “What the... that's what they called me?”

Another shrug. “Still do. So what if you've had more rebounds than a college basketball tournament, though? Half of the people talking smack about you wish they could do you, and the other half wish they could be you.”

I laughed half-heartedly and muttered, “Yeah, well, what he doesn't know won't hurt him.”

Val frowned. “You think he'd be jealous?”

“Maybe a little. Guys tend to have this Christopher Columbus mentality, all 'I was there first,' regardless of evidence to the contrary.”

A snort, then, “Well, you know what they say. No flag, no country .” She got up from the table and got two beers from the case that she'd brought with her, removed the caps and set one in front of me. “You sure you don't want to go out for one last hurrah before you get all colonized?”

“Colonized?” I took a long pull on my beer. “I'm no colony. I'm the mothereffing queen.”

Valerie laughed and clinked her beer bottle with mine in a toast. “And there's the woman who organized the Great Field Ops Panty Raid. Did Aleksei ever get his sweatpants back?”

“A lady never kisses and tells.”

We'd done some decent damage to that case of beer and an extra-large pizza and were kicked back watching I don't even remember what on Netflix when I heard a phone ringing at the edge of earshot. I was about ready to ignore it and let it go to voicemail when I realized that was my work phone. Ignoring Valerie's eye-roll, I scrambled to answer it. “Foley. Go.”

_“Good evening, Agent Foley. Is this a bad time?”_

My heart dropped when I recognized the voice of my boss back at SHIELD Central. “Well, sir, I'm on leave and I'm getting married tomorrow. Apply your sharp analytical brain to it and tell me what you think.”

_“I guess I earned that one, didn't I?”_ The forced laugh that I knew too well and hated because it made my skin crawl. _“Well, congratulations, in case I haven't said so already. And, er, might I ask a favor?”_

“Depends.”

_“We need you to do a bit of threat analysis for us, Agent. It's not as glamorous as your current assignment, but it's time sensitive and you're still the best that we've got.”_

I sighed. Normally catering to my ego would be all that I'd need in order to take on extra work at an inconvenient time, but this time I found myself dragging my feet. I didn't want to go back into the office, not on this night of all nights... “What about Gonsalves? She's just as good as I am – and, bonus, she's not on vacation.”

_“But she didn't help save the city from an alien invasion.”_

Crap. I'd known that sooner or later my trump card would be played against me... but now? “That is true.” I paused, thought for a minute, then asked, “Can you make it worth my time?”

_“Double pay for hours worked, plus a commensurate extension on your leave. How does that sound?”_

“And you're not going to keep me there all night, are you? I've got stuff to do. Appointments and whatnot.”

Again the fake laugh. _“Of course you do. Got to make yourself look picture perfect and all that. I promise I won't keep you any longer than I need you, Agent. We just need you to watch some footage and give us your expert opinion.”_

“Well, if you can send someone to pick me up, I'm your gal. I'm not fit to drive.”

_“We'll have someone there in ten minutes. Thank you for your cooperation, Foley.”_

In retrospect, so many things about that phone call should have given me pause. As big of a pain in the ass as my boss could be, he wasn't tragically inconsiderate. I knew for a fact that he hated making promises and avoided making them at all costs, preferring to speak in maybes and possibilities and never certitudes. He never asked for favors, and he never thanked me for doing my job.

But I wasn't thinking about that. I was tipsy and vaguely annoyed over being called into the office on the night before my damned wedding, and that overshadowed any of the misgivings that I should have had over the whole thing. I hung up my work phone and rummaged around for my not-work phone, oblivious to the look of disbelief that Valerie was giving me.

It took a while for the line to pick up on Clint's end, and when I got an answer, it wasn't him. “Oh, hi, Kate. Um, is Clint around?”

“ _He is. He just made me answer it because he doesn't want to talk to you tonight.”_

In the background I heard a drunkenly offended Clint grumble, _“Hey! Makin' me sound like a jackass, Katie-Kate. S'not that I don' wanna talk to her. S'bad luck, thas' all, talkin' to the bride beforehand. Tell 'er that.”_

“ _It's bad luck to see her, not to talk to her over the phone. Go back to the arcade, I'll be right there.”_ Kate sighed. _“Sorry about that. We're at Coney Island, and he's making it his mission to win you something even though he's drunk as a skunk. Need me to pass a message along?”_

It was difficult to suppress a smile at the thought of Clint wreaking havoc on the assorted amusement offerings at Coney Island and, now that I thought of it, it probably wasn't far off from the atmosphere in which he'd grown up. “Sure. Tell him that I got called into the office – the big office – tonight, but that I've been promised I'll be back in time for tomorrow.”

I could almost hear the eye-roll. _“That sucks. Aren't you on vacation?”_

“Eeyup. But they're paying me double for any time that I spend in the office, and they're extending my leave to make up for it. Almost makes it worthwhile, I guess.”

“ _I guess so. Still a pain in the butt if you ask me. I'll pass on the message, and I'll make sure that he stays out of trouble until tomorrow. After that, he's officially your problem.”_

I chuckled. “All right. Thank you, Kate.”

“ _Wait, wait, hold up! S' she still there?”_ Clint, again. _“Gimme the phone for a sec.”_ A rustling as Kate handed the phone over. _“Hey, hon! I, uh, I won you a bear. S'big and fluffy n' kinda, I dunno, kinda purple. Stuffed animal sorta bear, not a real kinda bear. Jus' n'case you're worried.”_

It made me shake my head a little that Clint thought I needed reassurance on that particular matter, but I nonetheless found myself smiling. “All right. I'll see you and your not-real kinda bear tomorrow.”

I got a call on my work phone shortly after I hung up, informing me that my ride to the big office was waiting for me outside. After saying goodbye to Val and to Bacchus – Clint had taken Lucky with him up to the 'nest' in order to prepare the dog for his part in the ceremony – I threw on a hoodie and made my way downstairs.

My next clue that something was up should have been the fact that both of the agents in the vehicle were armed and armored and not very talkative. But they got me to work quickly and safely, so I wasn't too inclined to ask why they weren't so chatty. It was when they followed me into my office that I started feeling uneasy. I did my best to hide it, though, instead fixing my boss with a polite albeit strained smile. “Evening, sir. Mind getting this show underway so I can get back home?”

“Of course, Agent. If you'll come with me to my office?”

I did as he asked, noting that Thing One and Thing Two (as I'd mentally dubbed my escorts) were never more than two steps behind me. One took up a post just outside the office door and Two just inside it after I'd walked in and taken a seat by my boss' desk. My boss woke up his computer and fussed with a few things in order to project the video onto the larger screen on his wall. “So, uh, mind filling me in on what exactly you're looking for?”

“We got some interesting footage of a powered individual of whom SHIELD previously hadn't been aware. Since you're our lead event analyst, we want you to tell us if you think she – uh, they – are going to constitute much of a threat.”

My boss' verbal stumble made my ears prick up. He rarely ever misspoke when it came to something serious and work-related, and Thing Two's wordless observation didn't help the atmosphere any. “What's the source?”

“Anonymous tip.”

That did little to reassure me, so I instead turned to clearing my mind as much as I could in order to be prepared for whatever he had to show me.

The film was obviously shot from a cell phone, and not very high quality. I couldn't see much at first and could only make out nervous conversation between two or three men speaking in Russian. _\- Are you ready? - Yes, I'm ready. - Okay, remember what we went over. - Hurt but don't kill. Just provoke so we can film her reaction. - Exactly. - We getting close? Sasha's dead if he gave us the wrong information. - No, this is right. Park, we wait here._

My guts began to tighten into knots when I recognized the neighborhood near the apartment building, then spasmed sharply when I realized that they were parking right near the drugstore where I'd gone with Valerie to get contact lens solution and a few other necessities. The van door opened and the camera kept rolling as one of the guys wearing an oh-so-distinctive tracksuit slid out of the passenger section.

And there I was. It was unmistakably me, walking with Val, my hands full of shopping bags. I could feel the sensation leaching from my body as I watched the tracksuit do his best to force me into a panic. I remembered punching him, hoping only to incapacitate him so we could get out of the area -

_\- Shit! Shit, there she goes, bro! - She hits like Vitaliy Ivan'ch. Bro's got fists like cement, like lead, bro. Kostya's gonna be hurting tomorrow. - Wait, is he bleeding? - He's bleeding all over, bro. That's what we're looking for. Get him, get him! -_

My boss paused the video. “I think you get the idea. Along with this video, we also received a verified doctor's report stating that the injuries that the victim sustained were consistent with broken glass, not with physical assault. What can you tell us, Agent Foley?”

I swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. There was no way to plausibly deny the evidence, and if I did, they would just go after Valerie and drag her into this. “What do you want me to tell you, sir?”

“Just what I asked you before. Is this individual a threat?”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “If you were to send this to one of our certified in-house translators, they would confirm that the individuals recording the video did so with the express purpose of catching an adverse reaction on film. That already paints the subject in an unfavorable light in that it implies that her abilities, whatever they are, can only be used to harm and not – for instance – to heal.”

My boss made a thoughtful noise. “But you do agree that her abilities can be incredibly harmful in the correct situation.”

“You asked for my assessment, sir. I've given it, and I'll agree to nothing.”

Thing Two finally spoke. “It is in your best interests to answer him, Agent Foley.”

“And I've already asked him what he wants me to say!” I shot back. “I can't argue. That's me on that screen, and I was attacked. I'll do what I can to defend myself - ”

“That's all that we needed to hear.” Thing Two nodded to my boss. “Thank you for your cooperation. We'll take her from here.”

“Take me?” Panic made the gorge rise in my throat. “Take me where, to do what?”

“To answer some more questions. Whether or not you're conscious and unrestrained is up to you.”

“But I haven't done anything wrong. You saw the video! I only acted to protect myself.”

Two moved almost too quickly for me to catch. I felt the needle slide into the unprotected flesh of my neck, and soon all was numb and cold and dark. The last thought to cross my mind before I was incapable of thought was, _Well, at least your boss told the truth. He's not gonna keep you longer than he needs you._

\-- 

So yeah, I might've made some mistakes during that initial questioning. The timing might have been shit for me, but I have to admit that it couldn't have played out better for the folks in charge. I wasn't on my sharpest mental game to start off with and they were able to turn my conscience against me in order to quickly get what they considered an admission of guilt – and, more important to them, proof that I could and would use my gifts for malicious purposes.

I don't know how long I was out for. I don't know where they took me, either, because I was unconscious for the whole journey. Under any other circumstances I would've paid good money for that kind of a nap because god knows I hadn't slept like that in ages. But no matter how far out of it I was, I could still hear a voice in the back of my head reminding me that this wasn't a good thing and from this point on, things were only going to reach a new level of ugly. _And for fuck's sake, remember your training._

What, you thought that my survival training was just running around in the woods and learning how to beat people up in a creative fashion? Nope. There was another component to it, the one that tends to leave the deepest marks on whoever goes through it. That's the part that was telling me that just because I'd kind of screwed the pooch didn't mean that I had to make it any worse, and to please remember that anyone who sticks a needle in your neck without your consent is probably not your friend. You know, the common-sense kind of stuff that you tend to forget when you're drugged out of your mind. But I digress.

“ _And whatever you do, remember, no skin-to-skin contact. That's how she works.”_

One of the most surefire ways to break the spirit of a prisoner is to remove everything that makes them who they are. I put up token resistance as my clothes were exchanged for a drab set of gray scrubs, as uniform and featureless as the walls around me. Of the few people I encountered, none of them spoke to me, and they kept physical contact of any variety to a minimum. This last was a blessing, I guess, because it meant that they didn't try to beat anything out of me. But, as I'm sure you already know, the worst wounds can be inflicted without laying a finger on your victim.


	23. “We're from the government and we want to help" (Eo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever you do, Agent Foley, don't drink the coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for implied interrogation and torture.

“Good morning, Eowyn.”

I didn't open my eyes. Why should I when I knew what was coming? So I turned away from the sound of the voice, put my arm over my ear to block it out. They'd taken away my blanket when I'd tried to strangle one of the guards with it, and part of me wondered with perverse humor what I'd have to do in order to get them to take away my pillow. “Go fug yourself,” I muttered. “Jus' wanna sleep.”

“That can be arranged, of course, but not before we have a little talk.” The man I called Thing Two and had assumed to be a guard was in fact an interrogator at wherever I was, and he'd been tasked with prying information out of me using whatever means he chose most effective. His chosen method was quiet, emotionless persistence. “I'm sure you're getting hungry. Why don't we get some breakfast?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“According to our records, it has been at least three days since you had solid food.” No lies there. Liquids had proven easier to clean up when I was lucid enough to be ornery. “And what about coffee?”

“I don't know. What about it?”

“Sarcasm is the weapon of a man who believes himself to have no other options.”

I responded to this by shifting my pillow from under my head to over it. “I've got plenty of options.”

“And I'd like to discuss those with you over breakfast. Nothing fancy, of course, but better than what you've been getting.”

My stomach grumbled at me, and as much as I didn't want to admit it, the thing had a point. “So long as you're paying. Think I left my wallet in my other pair of scrub bottoms.”

 --

Bastard made me walk with him. In between the drugs, the food situation, and my disrupted sleep cycle, I was barely even strong enough to stand up, much less move on my own and he still made me walk. Granted, he kept pace with me and offered the occasional steadying hand when it looked like I was about to tip over, but that wasn't much. And in retrospect this was a smart thing of him to do. I was too focused on staying upright to try to figure out more about my surroundings; after all, you don't take much notice of landmarks when you're too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other without falling on your face.

It felt all too good to sit down again. While the food wasn't fancy – oatmeal and toast, along with the promised coffee in a foam cup – it was the first humane thing that I'd experienced since my arrival and I wolfed it down with little thought as to my appearance. I stopped when I realized that my companion was watching me with a glint of what could have been interpreted as amusement in his dark eyes. “You'll forgive the blandness,” he said. “Anything too exciting and it would just come back up again in about an hour or so. We'd rather avoid that, wouldn't we? After all, we want the maximum benefit from this.”

_Shit – there's something in this, isn't there – Eo, you idiot -_

A muted snort as I dropped my toast like it was burning my fingers. “You have my word, Eowyn – it's not poisoned. We'd gain nothing from trying to harm you.”

“You mean, beyond what you're already doing?” I looked to my arms, riddled with bandages and bruises from tests that had been less than gentle. “Even the laboratory techs that I dealt with in the military were less brutal than the people you have here. The lady who took my blood's a direct descendant of Vlad the Impaler and you can't convince me otherwise.”

“Again, sarcasm.” Two's response at that point gave me the impression that he was taking notes. “On the contrary, we aren't trying to hurt you. We simply want to understand and, if possible, to help.”

“We're from the government and we want to help,” I muttered. “God save me from people who just want to help.”

“But we genuinely do.” Two sat back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head in a casual pose. “You're probably wondering why you're going through all of this if our motives are so pure. And perhaps we have been a trifle overzealous in ensuring your cooperation. For that I apologize. But based on the limited evidence that we've seen and the statements that you yourself have given, can you blame us for being cautious?”

I didn't answer his question, instead focusing on finishing up my food. I washed down the last of the toast with a sip of coffee, said, “I want a phone call. Don't you get a phone call while you're in jail?”

“You're not in jail, Eowyn. And besides, who would you call?”

I reflexively glanced down to my left hand and felt a chill trickle down my spine when I saw that the titanium band wasn't there. “Where's my ring?”

“Safe, as are you.” I shot Two a skeptical look. “This is perhaps the safest place that you can be, Eowyn. No mafia attacks, no eviscerations, no good intentions gone tragically awry.” The blood drained from my face when I heard _eviscerations_ and I had a brief flare of panic. How had they found out about that? “The scars on your body tell quite the story. Granted, we've had to infer quite a bit since you've been scrupulous about covering your tracks. But that surgery scar on your leg?” Two sipped from his own foam cup of coffee. “You haven't had surgery, but we know who has.”

This time I was prepared and I kept my emotions off of my face. “What's he got to do with this?”

“What do you think?” Two idly turned his coffee cup in his hand and watched the patterns swirl on the top of the liquid. “Loki might be back in Asgard, but he left all kinds of presents for us here on Earth. He wouldn't have known about you if it hadn't been for - ”

“You think that hasn't crossed my mind?”

Two put the coffee aside, safely out of reach, and leaned forward with his hands resting lightly on the table. “Then why do you persist in associating with him?” I looked down at the table, up at the ceiling, anywhere but at the man sitting across from me. “Answer the question, Eowyn.”

Despair settled in my stomach like a bitter stone. “Clint isn't your problem.”

An intrigued noise. “How so?”

“Don't you see? He's wrecked things in the past but he's never tried to fix it. This time, he didn't even ask to be dragged into it – but he's done nothing but try to make up for the damage that he caused. That includes...” I sighed. “That includes me. So keep me here, do what you think you need to do, but keep him out of it. He's a good man who's just doing his best.”

Two smiled for the first time ever that I'd seen. “Thank you, Eowyn. I'll make sure he knows that you said so.”

At that point I felt my head begin to swim, and I fought to keep my eyes open. “What the... thought you said you didn't put anything in...”

The smile widened, showing a sharklike sliver of teeth. “I said it wasn't poison. Just a little something to help you open up.” Two nudged the plate in front of me aside and then leaned across to help ease my progress as I slumped down to the tabletop. “You think yourself stone, but even stone can be worn down eventually. Pleasant dreams.”


	24. “She not your wife yet, bro. Maybe never.” (Clint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it cold feet, or maybe something worse? Fortunately for him, Clint has some expert help in figuring out the reason for his fiancee's sudden disappearance.

You know you've had a wild night when you wake up in the tub with a pounding hangover. You know it's been a legendary night when someone's turned on the shower in order to start sobering you up. I woke up in my tub to the water going full blast, hitting me in the face like so many icy needles. Sitting up with a groan, I slapped at the knob to turn the water off. “Urgh. One of those nights, huh?”

“You might say that.”

I looked up to see Mr. Foley glaring down at me. “Morning, sir. Or... I'm sorry...?”

“Considering that you probably had very little, if at all, to do with my daughter's disappearance, you don't need to apologize – yet.”

The word _disappearance_ woke me up faster than the water or Eo's dad's presence in my bathroom could. “What d'you mean – she's gone? You think she got cold feet?”

Mr. Foley rolled his eyes. “If she didn't want to go through with this, you would have known already. I raised her to speak her mind.” He gave me a disappointed look-over, huffed under his mustache, and muttered, “Fix yourself, son. I'll be back.”

As he left, I noticed that he'd left two things on the bathroom counter – a bottle of aspirin and what looked like a glass with two fingers of whiskey in it, neat. I took two pills and slugged down the whiskey, then stripped out of my wet clothes and got back into the shower to clean myself up proper. It took a little while for my brain to get in order, and as it did I realized a few things. Mainly I realized that this was not how I'd thought family bonding time would play out, but in a weird kinda way it fit.

I also thought about the urban legends I'd heard about the super soldier serum and its effects on the test subjects, like how the results were different based on what kind of person the subject was beforehand. If you were good to begin with, it just made you better – but if you were bad, it made you worse. Based on what I'd seen of Eo's dad, he'd been a good guy who'd seen too many bad things and was just trying to keep what he cared about safe. Now he was a kind of mustached backwoods Terminator-type who could and probably would singlehandedly rip apart anything or anyone that tried to hurt his family. He was probably the one who'd chucked me into the tub and turned the shower on, and it didn't take two brain cells to figure out that he expected me to ride shotgun with him when he went to take care of this piece of business.

_I really do pick 'em, don't I,_ I thought, groaning. But as I continued to wake up, I started to think about what we were up against and, more importantly, why we needed to go about this quick-like. This day was gonna be all about promises - with one helluva party afterward - but all of that would mean jack shit if I didn't put my money where my mouth was and fight to get her back.

With all of that in mind, I was in a fine fightin' mood when I got out of the shower. I took one last look at the new suit that I'd bought just for today and pushed it to the back of my closet. It'd get its day in the sun, hopefully, just not today. After going with my everyday non-work uniform of jeans and a slightly raggedy shirt, I went downstairs to see about getting some coffee started.

Either I'd taken longer than I thought in the shower or Mr. Foley was just that fast, because when I got downstairs I saw that he'd already beaten me to the punch in terms of coffee setup and now sat at my kitchen counter calmly cleaning what looked like a disassembled sniper rifle. “Took you long enough. Then again, guess I should make some allowances. I haven't had a hangover since they put this crap in my system,” he muttered. “Not sure who all you invited, but I told your protege to pass the word that the deal's off for now. The story is that Eowyn had a nasty accident and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. A necessary lie that gives us some room to work.”

I didn't get a chance to tell him how that lie wouldn't hold much water with the crowd I normally ran with because the landline rang. “'Lo?”

The voice I probably wanted to hear the least right then – or at least somewhere in the top five on that list – answered back with, _“Morning to you too, sunshine. Let me guess, the wedding's off.”_

“How did you know that, Tony, and why would you care?”

I could almost see him putting his hand to his chest. _“I might be a jerk, Clint, at least part of the time – but this isn't one of those times. Believe it or not, I was even kinda rooting for you.”_ Pause, then, _“Got a message from Kate telling me that your lovely intended had an accident and had to go to the hospital. Both of us know that's one hundred percent grass-fed b.s., because the only way that Agent Foley would be in a hospital is if she had a toe tag on – or if she was visiting you.”_

“So you really don't know what happened?”

“ _If I didn't know you better, I'd think you're implying that I had something to do with it.”_ Tony's tone was only half-joking now and if I'd really given a crap, I would have apologized. Instead I let him keep talking. _“I already told you I wouldn't turn her in, and I meant it.”_

“Well, then, who did? I've got a real short list of people who know what she can do, and so far you're at the top of it.” I glanced back over to Mr. Foley, who gave a small nod of approval. “And you'd better start talking fast, because I'm real tired of gettin’ shat on the few times I actually try to do something worthwhile with my life.”

“ _I get that, I really do. But you know as well as I do that things don't always work like that.”_ If I listened hard, I could hear the sounds of typing in the background. _“Tell you what. As a gesture of good faith, I'm gonna dig around and see if I can find out where she is. As for you, think of who you've pissed off recently who might want to get back at you. Go after them instead of me.”_

“So let me see if I'm hearin' you right – you're gonna help me out because you feel bad?”

“ _Call it a wedding gift. You know, for the wedding that I wasn't invited to. I'll call you back when I have something.”_

I put the handset back on the wall and stood there for a minute. Who else knew about Eo's abilities... and who could get something out of turning evidence over to the authorities? It wasn't her scientist friend, that I'd bet on. _Think. Who hates you or her or both enough to want to futz things up like this?_

A glance out of the corner of my eye towards the counter told me that Mr. Foley was done cleaning his weapon and was now slowly, carefully reassembling it. I got the feeling watching him that he'd done this a million times before, that he coulda done it blindfolded in the dark and not missed a single step. He saw me looking, said, “Her name's Tammy .”

“Wha – who?”

“The rifle. Named her after my aunt. Real battleaxe of a woman who took no business from anybody, including the church organist who stole her husband. But now isn't the time for stories.”

_Stole her husband._ Something about the phrase seemed familiar. I kicked it around in my head, tried to see if anything stuck... and when it did... “Son of a _bitch._ ”

“Something you feel like sharing, son?”

“Think I know who turned Eo in. Local mob, guys in tracksuits who keep trying to sell this building out from under the residents. Thought I'd chased 'em off for good, but they keep coming back.”

“Let me guess – my daughter got mixed up in it somehow.”

“It's how we met.” I half-expected Mr. Foley to say something in response to that, something threatening, but he sat there in silence like he knew there was more to the story. “She saved my ass, right after I tried to put it through the windshield of her car. Damn mooks threw me off a balcony, woulda killed me if she hadn't stepped in. She brained one on the doorframe of her car, stole his gun, and then took out the rest.”

And then Mr. Foley chuckled. “That's my girl. Never could resist a fight.”

I shook my head, wondering if the hangover was affecting my brain and making me see things. “Then, little while later, they sent more and tried to get her off-guard right out of the shower. She took one of 'em out with a flashlight.” Following a hunch, I went over to my window and peeked out. Sure enough... “Sir, how easy would it be for you to take out the tires on a van parked on the street?”

Mr. Foley snorted. “Don't insult me, son. I'm guessing you've got a target in mind?”

“Sure do.”

\--

I've had enough run-ins with the 'suits to figure out a few things about them. They aren't too smart, and they also have a habit of lurking out in plain sight when they've got something planned. That might spook someone who's easily scared. But me? Nah. Not that day, anyway. Besides, I had some pretty good backup. When it comes to outsourcing your support, it's hard to beat a retired spec ops soldier with caffeine, whiskey, icy-hot rage, and super serum pumping through his veins.

It didn't take much convincing for the tenants on the second floor to let Mr. Foley use one of their windows as a safe vantage point to take his shots. I took up a post just inside the building's entry door, opened it up a little, and waited for the sound of exploding tires.

Kate can laugh all she wants about that net arrow, but when you want to take someone down and keep them awake and relatively unhurt, that's the way to go. Lucky for me, there was only one other guy in that van, and he went down quick with a stun shot to the neck. Mr. Foley joined me a moment later to help in tossing our captives into the back of the vehicle.

It took some persuading to get the one who was awake to talk to me, and I won't get into the details. “Now, I know your boss is probably upset that he didn't get an invite, but stealing my wife on the day of our wedding? That's just low.”

The 'suit grinned, said, “She not your wife yet, bro. Maybe never.”

“If that turns out to be the case...” Mr. Foley's tone was casual, talking-about-the-weather casual and not something you'd use to try to intimidate someone. I glanced over and saw that he'd brought out a wicked-looking knife from somewhere and was now using it to carefully clean his nails while he talked. “Then I'd suggest you get out of dodge.”

The 'suit took one look at him, then back to me. “Who this bro?”

I stayed quiet and let Mr. Foley take this one. “The father of the bride, the gentleman who shot out the tires on your vehicle here, and the man who will take your organization apart piece by piece – slowly. I'm of half a mind to start with you.”


	25. "Everything's legal in New Jersey" (Clint)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for implied torture.
> 
> In other notes, if you get the reference in this chapter's title, you can tell approximately when I wrote this. It's like carbon dating, but for musical theater fans.

We didn't get anything that we didn't know or that I hadn't guessed already out of that guy, but I'll admit that making him crap his pants a little was a hell of a lot of fun. And then it was time to play the waiting game. I was all for doing some more openly persuasive acts in order to find out where Eo had been taken, but Mr. Foley advised against kicking over any more anthills until we had a specific target.

One day went by, then two. I made what phone calls I could, as did Mr. Foley, and still a whole lot of nothing. As time passed I saw that the suburban dad front that he'd been putting on was just that, an act, but one that he'd started to enjoy over the years. Now he was forced to be a soldier again, and how much of this was my fault? The guilt started digging in especially hard when I caught him on the tail-end of a conversation with Janna, telling her that we still hadn't figured anything out but that we were doing our best. And even though I didn't say anything, my thoughts must've been easy to figure out.

“Don't work me into your guilt fantasies, son.” I gave him a confused look. “You want to think that all of this is your fault. Some parts of it might be, but some parts of it definitely aren't – and me getting involved is definitely not your fault. Even if I hadn't chosen to be a lab rat in the name of patriotism, I'd be a terrible excuse for a father if I sat this one out.”

Two days later all of that waiting paid off. We were called in to the Tower - “because no way am I telling you any of this over the phone” - to look over what Tony had managed to dig up. And I dunno, I was kinda disappointed. I guess I'd been expecting an underground bunker or something, maybe some shark tanks, or at least some lasers... but not an office building in motherfutzing Newark.

Figures that this thing was going down in Jersey. Everything's legal in New Jersey. 

 --

It also shouldn't have surprised me that Mr. Foley had a go bag ready, even for something as innocent as his daughter's wedding. The fact that his gear set included light body armor, a pair of pistols, two knives, and his custom sniper rifle made me wonder just what he'd thought was gonna go down. What surprised me most of all, though, was when he insisted that we grab a spare change of clothes from Eo's side of the closet in our apartment. But as I thought about it, it made sense – it'd be the first step in helping her feel normal again after whatever she'd been put through. As for me, well, I made a quick trip up to the roof. It'd been cleaned up pretty good for the shindig, so it was hard to find what I was looking for, but I eventually did.

The trip from New York to Newark takes half an hour or so without traffic, so we had plenty of time to go over the plan that we'd hashed out in Tony's office. It was so simple that it couldn't go wrong, and we'd be back in time for dinner. I like those kinds of plans. They make my life easy, and the chances of me winding up injured or otherwise out of commission are a lot smaller. But the problem with simple plans is that they rarely ever go the way you expect them to. Simple plans are great in theory, but in reality? Simple plans don't exist in reality.

So yeah, office building in Newark. Looked like your run-of-the-mill doctor's office. Only giveaway that something was up was that the parking lot was completely empty – not only at the target site, but for the buildings around it in what looked like a two-mile radius or so. On a weekday in the afternoon, you'd expect a few cars, right?

Our next step was to enter the building and, if need be, knock out any resistance that we met. Except there wasn't any resistance. Only person in sight was a perky brunette with a toothy grin manning what looked like a reception desk. “Oh, there you are!” she said. “Mr. O'Brien said you'd be here any day now. Elevator's that way, and his office is on the fourth floor. He thought you might have some questions for him.”

I traded looks with Mr. Foley. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all. But he shrugged and nodded towards the elevator. Once the door closed behind us, I turned on him and hissed, “What the actual _futz._ You know how easy it would be for them to kill us in here, right?”

“They could, but they won't. If they wanted us to be dead they could have taken us out before we even walked through the door.” Mr. Foley took a long breath to calm himself down. “Just because they've changed the first few steps doesn't mean that we can't keep going with the plan. Remember that.” He then reached out and pressed two buttons – one for the third floor, one for the fourth. The elevator seemed to think about it for a little while. Then it began inching slowly upward. As if that weren't bad enough, the music...

Soft jazz and ABBA are two things that should never be allowed to mix, and whoever let that happen should be shot. After the first two minutes of “Dancing Queen,” I gave up and switched my hearing aids off. That got me a nasty glare from Mr. Foley and even with his mustache blocking out part of his upper lip it was pretty easy to figure out that he was calling me an asshole. I shrugged. Being deaf sometimes has its advantages, and this was one of them.

He eventually decided enough was enough, though – enough to unholster one of his pistols, take careful aim at the speaker, and snap off one shot. I then got a pointed look which I took as my cue to turn my ears back on. “That'll show them what we're about,” he grumbled. “Though I'm pretty sure they already know.” The elevator chimed. “There's your floor. She should be somewhere nearby... Once you've got her, bring her upstairs.”

The doctor's office vibe extended out onto the third floor – tile floors, lots of beige, a soothing painting of a flower or other nature scene here and there on the wall, the faint smell of disinfectant. It ended with the first set of armed guards that came around the corner after hearing the elevator ding. I put 'em down with a pair of stun shots. Another pair came up behind me while I was occupied with the first two, so I gave one a good strong donkey kick back down the hall and used the head of the second one to bust open the case on the wall holding the fire extinguisher – not like I expected any fires, mind you, but because fire extinguishers are handy at breaking things, too. The _tonnnng_ sound it made as it hit the skull of the final guard was music to my ears, and I kept it close to hand as I rifled the pockets of the four for anything useful... say, keys.

Fortunately for me, there wasn't a lot of ground to cover. Unfortunately for me, what I saw was fuel for nightmares for several years afterward. You know that critter that gutted Eo and did a number on Jess and would've killed me if Eo hadn't come back from near-death and given it a good whack? Well, there were more of them here, sleeping in some kind of special suspended animation goo. And there were some of the big, dumb, and ugly type that'd come after Kate – the same model that'd chucked me down a flight of stairs. None of them looked like they were ready to come after me, but I chose to play it safe and didn't stick around for a closer peek.

Tucked away around the bend in the hall was what looked like an observation room. None of the lights were on inside, but I could see through the window that it had been modified to hold a simple bed, a toilet, a sink, and a table with two flimsy chairs. I peered closer and saw that there was someone curled up on the bed, a childlike figure in a set of loose-fitting gray scrubs with a shaved head and compression bandages lining their arms. As I watched, they rolled onto their back to look up at the ceiling – slowly, like they'd been dosed with a heavy tranquilizer – and then I got a closer look at their face. Wait, not their – _her_ face.

I couldn't open the door fast enough. I dropped my gear and the duffel with the change of clothes on the table and dashed over to the cot. Hearing footsteps, Eo sat up with a terrified gasp and scrambled to huddle in the far corner of the cot, putting her arms up over her face and trying to make herself as small as possible. “Eowyn? Eo, honey, it's me.”

She lowered her arms just enough to look at me with unfocused eyes. “Clint? Why're you here? You shouldn't be here, I told them they could have me if they leave you alone and they promised they would. Don't want them to hurt you too, so just - ”

I took a seat on the edge of the cot, reached out and carefully took one of her hands in mine. I could feel it shaking, the bones as fragile as a songbird. “Nobody's gonna do anything else to you, not while I'm here. You're safe now.”

And then she was in my arms, burying her face in the curve of my neck, her tears dripping warm through the fabric of my shirt. Not like she's that large to begin with, but whatever they'd done had managed to sap that iron will that'd made her seem at least two sizes bigger. I mean, I could count the notches in her spine. And her hair! What the futz had they done with her hair? I stopped myself from thinking about that because I could feel the anger hissing in my ears and if I thought too long about why they'd want to shave her head it kinda made me really want to hurt someone.

Eo sat back, wiping the tears from her face. “You didn't come here alone, did you?”

“No. Your dad's upstairs having a chat with our good ol' buddy Mr. O'Brien. He told me to get you and then come join him.” I chucked a thumb in the direction of the table, added, “That bag's got some clothes for you, some stuff to make you feel more human-like. And I, uh, I brought something too.” I rummaged around in the pocket of my jeans and breathed a sigh of relief when I found what I was looking for. “I brought a little piece of home with me. Not really a rock, but it's mortar – which, uh, holds stuff together. I'll be here to hold you together for as long as you want me, married or not.”

Eo smiled through a bout of sniffles. “God, you're a goof,” she said. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek, then eased herself over to the edge of the cot. I gave her a hand up and an arm over to the table. “But you're my goof. Help me get dressed?”

\--

We took the stairs to the fourth floor. I could see the pain in the tight line of Eo's jaw as she forced herself to keep pace with me step by step. She waved off my offers of help, instead clinging to the handrail. At first I was ready to give her a ration of crap for being stubborn, but I guessed that the pain was helping her to focus – and on a different level, she was storing the pain away to be used later if needed. But I could see some hint of her usual spirit coming back as we walked, and that made me worry a little less.

There were no guards waiting for us when we finally reached the top of the stairs. Eo took a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back before stepping through that doorway, and if it hadn't been for the barest wobble in her steps it would've been impossible to tell that she'd gone through anything unpleasant.

“It's about time you showed, son.” Mr. Foley was sitting in one of the chairs across a large wooden desk from a man who I could only guess was Mr. O'Brien. Not sure why I expected our big bad to be wearing a lab coat or holding a large furry cat on his lap, but once again I felt let down. This mastermind whose presence alone was enough to make Eo shudder against her will wore jeans and a button-down and had all of the charm of a car salesman and the readability of a professional card shark. _Heads up,_ I told myself. _This whole thing's seemed off since you pulled into the parking lot, and this guy's just the cherry on top._

“Yes, it's about time.” O'Brien didn't break the gaze that he fixed on the man across from him, probably a good idea because of the sidearm that Mr. Foley rested casually on one knee. “I was just explaining to this gentleman that we have his daughter's consent to any and all procedures to be performed on her in this facility, and that his – and your – blatant display of force is both unnecessary and unlawful. Perhaps you'd care to support me on this, Eowyn? After you take a seat, of course.”

“I'll take that seat,” Eo muttered, pausing just long enough to ease herself down into the chair next to her father. “But support you? Eat my entire ass... sir.”

Mr. Foley let out a quiet, amused snort. I wanted to kiss Eo at that moment but had to settle for a poorly-hidden grin. O'Brien turned white, like her sass had caused his brain to glitch. But the moment was gone as soon as it'd arrived. “Interesting,” he murmured. “You seemed quite willing - ”

“I was drugged and afraid for my safety and that of the people I care about.” Eo leaned forward with a sneaky smile. “The funny thing about consent is that it can be revoked at any time, like right now.”

“Ah. Of course it would come down to that.” There was a creak of leather as O'Brien leaned back in his big cushy chair, and something about his smile made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “You're probably wondering why a facility like this was so lightly guarded. Well, you see, we're just contractors. If we want extra help, we have to call out for it...” His smile widened. “And will all of this bravado really make any difference if I simply get rid of the witnesses?”

I was too close to get off a good shot, so I did the next best thing and rammed the arrow I'd pulled from my quiver right through the bastard's hand as he reached for his desk phone. It would've been effective enough if it'd been a regular run-of-the-mill arrowhead, too, but luck was on my side... sorta. My ear canals lit up with a screech of feedback like I'd just goosed the devil himself, and then the lights went out. Of all the times to grab a motherfutzing EMP arrow... _You really gotta label these things better,_ I told myself.

When my eyes'd adjusted to the lower light, I saw that Mr. Foley now had his pistol trained squarely between O'Brien's eyes. What scared me more, though, was the expression on Eo's face as she held his wrist in a steely grip and leaned in to whisper something in his ear. The strange angle kept me from seeing what she had to say, but it was clear from the look she got from him that the message had been received loud and clear. She let go of his wrist, looked to her father, and jerked her chin towards the door. Mr. Foley held up his hand in the “wait a minute” gesture, asked something of O'Brien – _where is it? the ring, dumbass –_ and was rewarded with a blank, panicky stare. O'Brien then fumbled around in his shirt pocket with his free hand and came up with Eo's titanium band. She plucked it out of his grip, jammed it back onto her ring finger, then gave her interrogator an expressive farewell with one of the other fingers on that hand before storming out.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love this woman?

 --

Mr. Foley took care of the drive back. He figured out pretty quick that my ears were dead and declared himself the one competent adult of the three of us, or at least the one best suited to operating a vehicle. He also didn't say anything when I slid into the backseat with Eo and covered her up with my coat and then let her fall asleep on me. I hadn't been sure that this whole thing would work out, and I'm man enough to admit I'd been scared shitless that it wouldn't.

Eo's dad dropped us and the car off at our building. He exchanged a few brief words with his daughter and gave her a huge hug. After a short hesitation, he turned to me and raised one hand in a casual salute, then shouldered his go bag and strolled off down the street to do god knew what.

I kept my distance while we went up the stairs. Even though Eo'd made a dramatic point with the ring and the whole giving-of-the-finger before leaving, I still wasn't sure how close she wanted me to be. She answered that question for me by giving me only enough time to shut and lock the door behind us and drop my gear by the door before pulling me down to her level to kiss me like we were in one of those cheesy retro science fiction stories where the guy and the girl are about ready to get thrown into vacuum and they're trying to share air so they don't die. (Don't ask me why Eo has those kinds of stories in her collection, but she does. Like, three whole paperbacks of 'em. But she does, and I've read 'em. Anyway...)

She pushed me down so hard onto the couch that I felt the frame creak under me. Didn't hear it so much because I didn't have a chance to switch out my fried hearing aids for the spare set that I kept around in case the nice ones got damaged at work. But I didn't need my ears for this. I mean, hearing things while you're doin' stuff is nice, but all of my other senses work just fine. And I couldn't help but be amazed. Eo'd seemed so fragile and shaky and scared a few hours ago, but I didn't see any of that now – or feel it, either.

The whole thing didn't last long. I didn't mind too much, though. Sometimes it's about the buildup, all about making the other person wait all day until the perfect moment. Other times it's a craving that you've gotta take care of right then and there. Either way, it's not the way you go about it so much as meeting a need – and being able to meet that need? Effing awesome, no pun intended.

I woke up a little while later to Lucky nudging my leg. It was about the right time for his evening before-dinner walk, and it kinda made sense that Eo wasn't feeling up to taking care of this. So I tidied myself up and finally switched out my dead ears for the spare set. I peeked into the bedroom after I got done in the bathroom and saw that Eo was fast asleep on the bed, snuggled up to the large, not real, purple stuffed bear that I'd won for her at the carnival with this cute little grin on her face. I'd put one of my old shirts on it kind of as a joke and seeing her cuddled up with it made me grin too. I might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but every once in a while, I get it right.


	26. "Cut the horseshit, Nick" (Clint)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, it's been a minute since I last updated. Grad school happened and is still happening, and there were some severe health issues that are still getting ironed out. But I'm back, and so is this story! Even better, I've finally finished it. But we aren't there yet...

That nice little quiet spell only lasted for that evening. Next morning I got my phone blown up with an official summonses from none other than Steve himself, but wearing his Cap hat and speaking in that tone of voice that made me feel like I was bein' called to the principal's office. Or something like that. My own experiences with schools are kinda spotty, but I've seen a lot of after-school TV specials. Maybe a better description was the dog that widdles on the carpet and gets his nose rubbed in it. But you get the idea. It was bad. And, even worse, I had to bring Eo in with me.

I let her take a shower and get some coffee in her system before I brought it up. Not sure what I'd expected as a reaction from her, but what I got wasn't it. She drained her coffee, stared down into the empty cup for a while, then looked back up at me with a tired sigh. “You say it's your people and not mine? Well, maybe your people can talk some sense into my people about this whole mess.”

“I wouldn't bet on it, but we can at least hear what they've gotta say before we run for the hills.” Eo raised her eyebrows at this. “Yeah, I said 'we.' This whole situation might not be my fault, but you can't argue I didn't have a hand in it.”

\-- 

“Are you sure that you don't want me to wait in the hall or something?” Even I could see that Eo was nervous. “I mean, you don't want me to influence his answers or anything like that.”

“This isn't a court-martial, at least not on your part.” Steve was still in his official Cap role, all stern and leader-like, and even though Eo wasn't there in her own official job role, this was something her military background understood. “If nothing else, maybe you can help us clear up a few things. Now, please, have a seat.”

“All right.” Eo sat down in the chair next to mine and everything about her said that nothing about this was 'all right' to her. She sat ramrod straight, hands on knees, both feet flat on the ground, perfect military posture – but she'd gone extra pale and she was forcing herself to breathe normally. “Let's get this over with.”

Steve nodded, then turned to me. “We'll take care of official business first. Were you aware that the facility that you infiltrated yesterday belonged to a group contracted to do research for SHIELD?”

“Yeah, I knew. Well, after I went in and had a chat with their director. He was so kind as to explain that to me.”

“Was that before or after you used excessive force to restrain him to his desk?”

“Before. And if you're talking about the whole thing with his hand and the EMP charge, it was either that or the guy got a bullet between the eyes. I'd rather have him up and talking.” Steve was getting his self-righteous disapproving frown on, but Tony sitting next to him was unreadable. “And while we're on the topic, what kinda research was SHIELD asking them to do that SHIELD couldn't – or wouldn' t – do themselves? I saw some of it. Critters in suspended animation, alien tech fused to human hosts. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?”

I saw the frown get deeper, but I was on a roll. “And then there was that creepy X-Files Gitmo shit that they pulled on one of their own people. I'll admit, I've got a personal interest in it. But take my interests out. Take one look at her” I waved a hand at Eo, who'd gone stone-still “and tell me that you wouldn't want that to stop! Nobody deserves to be treated like that.”

“And so you took it upon yourself to perform an unsanctioned rescue mission with minimal backup, and damn the consequences.” The frown was gone, replaced by a small smile. “I can't exactly point fingers here, can I.”

“And never mind that the place you broke into was rigged to blow after ten minutes if there was an unresolved power failure.” Tony pulled up a few different news feeds and projected them up on the wall for all to see. “SHIELD had a field day explaining this one, especially since they didn't have their resident expert to do spin control for them. You're lucky you all got out alive.”

“As is, SHIELD wants you gone,” Steve said to me. “And they want you,” a glance over to Eo, “turned back over to their custody. But, lucky for both of you, you've got someone higher up on your side.”

An audio clip this time. I felt something in my gut clench when I heard Nick Fury open the conversation: _“It's been a long time, Warrant Officer Foley. Not like it isn't a pleasure, but mind telling me why you're calling so late?”_

Eo's dad, replying: _“Cut the horseshit, Nick. Don't tell me you don't know what's going on with your organization.”_ I cringed. Even at my ballsiest, I knew it wasn't a brilliant idea to call Nick on the carpet like that. _“They took my daughter. They had her for four motherfutzing days before I was able to get to her, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they were gonna crack her brain open like a geode and poke around a bit.”_

Fury, defensive: _“What exactly are you suggesting, Warrant Officer?”_

“ _I'm suggesting that you broke your word. Your people told me when I retired that they would leave me and my family alone. What the hell is going on, then?”_

Nick was quiet for a couple of long moments, then said, _“I'll look into it.”_

“ _That's it? You'll look into it? What about my daughter and the nasty crap they did to her – or that scruffy circus freak who risked his neck to help me bust her out?”_

“ _Who, Barton?”_ A disgusted noise. _“Of course he did. Whatever happened to your daughter didn't happen with my approval, but I can't just let her run around unsupervised and you know it. I also can't let him get off scot-free.”_

“ _But she won't be a lab rat for your people again. Promise me that.”_ This wasn't a request. _“Promise me that, or you'll find out what your word is worth to me.”_

_\--_

So yeah, that's how I wound up with a six-month suspension from my day job, and the team got a new player. She got a nifty codename, too, and some pretty slick gear – and a handler to help her figure out her abilities while keeping some oversight. But that's not my story to tell.

We had some time on our hands, though. Eo got a couple months' compassionate medical leave to start recovering from whatever they'd done to her. Like the whole attitude of “Hey, our bad, sorry we futzed with your head and messed up your life” could be enough. But they put in the token effort, n' I guess that's cool of them. Kinda.

After all that business, I wouldn't have blamed Eo if she wanted to put off the whole getting married thing for the foreseeable future. But all she asked for was a few months to let the bruises fade and so that her hair could grow back a little. “I don't want to look like Sinead O'Connor in our pictures, that's all.”

I remember running my fingers over the peach fuzz on her scalp where her head rested on my chest. “Aw, but the angry Irish rock star thing is a good look for you.”

She snorted. “You'd think I look good after six days in the woods covered in mud and god knows what else.”

But she got her two months, and she was there when I got the crowd together on the roof for our little get-together. And after all the shit that we'd gone through just to get to that day, it was perfect.


	27. "Finding you wasn't an accident" (Eo)

Each person has a part of their subconscious that contains all of the memories that they vow never to let see daylight again. For some it looks like a row of prison cells, for others a pile of boxes bound with chains and locks too strong for the average mortal to break. Regardless of the appearance, though, it's a necessary construction in order to contain all of the trauma that is too difficult or too shameful for the owner to exhume. Some are lucky in that this space is small, almost nonexistent. I'm not so lucky. Each thing that happened to me over the course of those four days occupies its own personal lockbox. I won't bring them out for the world to see. I also won't venture so deep into introspection to wonder what kind of person I am that I cheered when I found out that Thing Two died a nasty death in the place where he did his best to take me apart. Or maybe I didn't cheer out loud, but I at least smiled.

I also won't be so cocky as to overlook the obscene amount of luck I had to have had in order to get out of that place. I'd resigned myself to the worst, believing that I'd sworn myself away to protect the people I cared about and that if they knew what was good for them, they'd stay away and let me go. But lucky for me, that wasn't the case.

I'm not going to dwell on that. Instead, let's step forward a few days. Safe and sound, or so I thought, then called in to account for myself and Clint in front of a panel of his peers. I'd expected the worst there, too, but thanks to powers that I didn't quite understand I found acceptance – albeit with caution. Thanks to my father's intervention, my ties to SHIELD were severed in all but the most tangential ways. Sure, I retained my Agent status, but that was bumped down my list of AKA's in favor of a zippy new name: Triage. As if I needed a reminder that my gifts were to be used to help instead of to harm.

In another twist of irony, I was assigned a handler to help me get accustomed to my new role and also to make sure that I followed the straight and narrow. And who was this lucky soul? None other than Bobbi, Clint's ex-wife. I still don't know to this day if she was chosen for this job or if she volunteered, but I remembered the sound thrashing I'd gotten under the nickname of “training” and knew I'd fare far worse if I got out of line. Not like I had any intentions of doing so, mind.

\-- 

I told Clint that I needed a few months before I'd be ready to get married. The vain excuse that I gave was that I wanted to look presentable, and that was only partially true. The real reason was that I wanted to make sure that those doors in my subconscious were locked up tight, all of the hatches battened down so that nothing could come jarring loose at the wrong moment. I wanted us to happen, I really did, but I needed to fortify myself first.

But I got my two months. The whole shindig hadn't been that fancy to begin with, so it didn't take that much to get everything back in place. And this time there were no ominous phone calls, no setbacks – only minor adjustments to be made in case of weather, since we were now looking at the tail end of summer as opposed to the beginning of it.

Oh, and the gloves! I almost forgot to mention those. One of the conditions of my “parole,” if you want to call it that, was that I was to avoid all unnecessary human contact – and to make sure that there were no accidents, I had to in the very least cover my hands whenever I was out in public. This wasn't a problem when it came to designing my new tactical gear, but finding something to wear in civvies that didn't mark me as an outsider – well, that took some doing.

Val was a miracle worker, though, as the maid of honor is unofficially expected to be. She found a pair of dainty vintage wrist-length gloves made out of immaculate ivory kidskin leather and gave them to me the day of the ceremony. “Something old,” she said, giving me one last critical lookover. “Not like superstitions helped us much the first time we tried this, but who knows, maybe this time it'll stick.”

The 'borrowed' part of the superstition was taken care of by a bobby pin from Val's own updo, used to tuck down a single rebellious flyaway in my own still-short coif. 'New' was just barely covered – in a manner of speaking – by the underpinnings under my dress, and 'blue' by a set of tiny sapphire earrings passed down to me by my mother along with some entirely unnecessary advice on maintaining intimate satisfaction after marriage.

Then, before I knew it, it was time. Mom and Val departed for the roof after giving me a few last teary-eyed hugs, and I was left alone in the apartment to think with Bacchus as my guard. The cat watched me solemnly from his usual perch atop my bookcase, eyes following the flutter of the hem of my dress as I kicked my feet nervously. I'd forsworn the extravagant and borderline dangerous footwear usually dictated for this occasion by fashion, instead opting for an ankle-high variant of the purple sneakers that I'd seen as a staple of Clint's day-to-day wardrobe. “But why am I so nervous, Bacchus? I mean, everything's going as right as it can. I know this is what I want, so why does this feel so... off?”

Bacchus blinked slowly in acknowledgment of my words and then rolled to lick a patch of fur on his side. “I guess it's just not what I'd envisioned for myself, that's all. Not like this isn't wonderful – like _he_ isn't wonderful – but...” I sighed. “I'm just being silly, I guess.”

I was distracted from my thoughts at that point by a knock on the door. A quick peek through the fisheye showed it to be my dad. I opened the door slowly for dramatic effect and struck a pose, and I was rewarded with one of his rare smiles. “Looking good, sugar bear. You ready for this?”

“As ready as I'll ever be.” I stepped through the doorway and locked it behind me, my dad averting his eyes briefly as I tucked the key down in my bodice for safekeeping.

Even though I tried to project an image of serene happiness, some of my worry must have leaked through, because my dad gave my arm a comforting pat and said, “I know you're nervous, and I understand why. But it goes without saying that if anyone tries to lay a finger on you without your permission, I'll kick their ass up between their ears. And if that sideshow fruitcake waiting upstairs for you has a brain in his noggin, he'll do the same.”

 --

I could see a faint sliver of late afternoon sunlight through the partially open door, could hear the low murmur of voices on the rooftop just beyond. In between family and friends and building residents and people from work, there weren't more than twenty-five people or so out there. The upside is that I knew every one of them, but that didn't stop me from pausing behind my dad with my heart in my throat. He looked back at me with quiet concern, his hand on the door panel. I smiled back, as much for my own benefit as his, smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in my skirt, and told him to open the door all the way.

Richard had volunteered to take care of music, not for any kind of altruistic motive but because it gave him a reason to stand apart from the crowd towards the back. While I'd been afraid at first that he'd take my choices and discard them in favor of whatever he thought was appropriate, I smiled when I heard the opening bars of the piano piece I'd opted for instead of the traditional processional. “'Zanarkand'? Isn't that from Final Fantasy or some crap like that?” he'd asked during our one brief rehearsal the night before. “You're a huge-ass nerd, you know that.”

“And water's wet, Richie,” I'd shot back. “Don't tell me they gave you that law degree because of your gift for rehashing the obvious.”

But despite my brother's antagonism, I realized that he'd respected my decision as I heard the first faint, pristine notes drop through the quieting crowd like light rain. Deke hadn't been teasing when he'd offered his services as officiant, and he took his place on top of the ducting at the far end of the rooftop to oversee the proceedings. Valerie took a place below and to the side, mirrored by Kate and soon joined by Lucky. Last to arrive was Clint, and it gave me some reassurance to see that he was doing as bad of a job of hiding his jitters as I was. Kate said something to him that made him snort, though, and then he turned to face the crowd – and me.

“Last chance, sweetie,” my dad murmured, and it was only the light quirk of one eyebrow that told me he was joking.

“We blew up a building to get me here,” I muttered back. I took a quick, deep breath, huffed it out again. “It's party time.”

Photographers have a certain set of shots that they try to get at weddings, and cliché as they might be, they usually tend to be pretty good. One of them is the facial expression of the partner at the altar when they see their intended in their finery – and it's usually a mixture of hope and joy and adoration with an eensy bit of dread thrown in if they're being honest. What I got was a low, astonished wolf-whistle, followed by the doofiest grin on the face of the Earth. Kate gave me a thumbs-up from her post next to Clint, and Lucky let out a happy bark of greeting. This last part got muted laughter from the crowd and I couldn't help but grin too.

Once we reached the front, my dad paused to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He then turned to Clint and gave him a pointed look which needed no words to clarify, waiting for the nod of acknowledgment before returning to stand next to my mother. The doofy grin vanished, though, when Clint looked down at my hands in his and saw the gloves. He frowned, shifted his grasp slightly, and peeled the gloves off, making sure that all assembled saw him do it. The gloves went into a pocket in his suit, followed by a glare of challenge out into the crowd. There were a few uncomfortable mutters from those in the know but nobody dared correct him.

Deke cleared his throat to get everyone's attention and silence fell over the rooftop. “Afternoon, everyone! I don't know about any of you, but I think it's about damn time these two got this over with.” Muted chuckles to this. “If you're here, you've heard the story about how they met, so I'm not gonna bore you by telling it again – but I'm guessing that this guy's butt isn't the only redeeming feature he's got, or else this wouldn't be happening.” More chuckles, overshadowed by laughter. “Now, before we get this underway, are there any objections out there?” Silence, mercifully, except for the sound of a car horn a block or so away. “That doesn't count, so let's do this. Clint?”

“So, uh, yeah.” An uneasy cough, then, “Accidents seem to be the theme with us, right? One thing right after the other – mobsters, bad plumbing, brainwashing, alien invasions, it's a big list. But you've stuck around through all of it, so I guess that means one thing.” I was silently amazed to see the public persona that I was used to, the overconfident smartass, pushed to the side just this once. “You don't need me to protect you, but you still let me. You accept my bullshit, but you don't excuse it. Never mind that you steal my clothes and that you put the toilet paper roll in backwards – and don't tell me it's because of that weird-ass cat of yours. It's okay. Nobody's perfect, which I guess is why we work so well.” I could hear the quiet laughter in the final, less-nervous pause that followed. “I guess what I'm tryin' to say here is that out of all of the stuff that's happened, finding you wasn't an accident. I'm here and I'll be here until it's my time to go.”

I waited for the audience's reactions to this to die down, both so that my response could be heard and also to give myself time to compose my thoughts. Soon all was quiet again, or as quiet as could be. “Well, dear, if you're that worried about the toilet paper, maybe you should change it out yourself instead of leaving just one piece on the roll and calling it good.” Snickers and a few scattered _ooh_ s to this. “There's aloe for that burn in the medicine cabinet downstairs if you need it. But, in all seriousness...” It was my turn to pause a beat. I could feel everyone watching me, and part of me still wondered what in hell I was doing. “A lot of people don't get what they want or even what they expect, and they see that as a bad thing. Well, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that when you get knocked on your ass it's usually because you need a change in perspective. You aren't what I expected, but as it turns out, you're what I needed.”

The usual things happened after that: rings, the kiss, a quick retreat from the clamor of celebration to someplace quiet – that someplace quiet being a brief pause in the stairwell just below the roof access door. We leaned up against the wall and listened to the commotion above as tables for food were set up and drinks distributed from ice chests. There was music, too, and I gave my brother silent props for choosing a playlist that was neither obscure nor depressing.

I was brought back out from my headspace by a light nudge on my foot. “Nice shoes,” Clint said. “If I wasn't wearing mine, I'd have thought a minute that you'd swiped those too.”

“Your feet are bigger,” I replied. “Would've looked silly.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Hey, stand up for a minute.” I looked at him askance but still did as he asked, and was pleasantly surprised when he whisked his suit jacket off and draped it around my shoulders. “You've been shaky this whole time. Saw the way you cased the place the moment you stepped out, like you were afraid someone was gonna snatch you again.” Clint loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top few buttons of his dress shirt, and unfastened his cuffs so that he could roll up his sleeves. “Phew. Much better.” A glance down at me, then, “I know this isn't easy for you. We can stay out here as long as you need.”

We stayed there for a few more minutes. While almost comically oversized on my frame, the weight of the suit jacket was oddly comforting and the sweetness of the gesture made me want to curl up and hide from mixed pleasure and shame. But even as I snuggled a little deeper into it, I couldn't help but remember a conversation that I'd had with Bobbi about a month previous. _“A little word of warning from someone with practical experience,”_ she'd said. _“Keep your eye on him. Sooner or later he's going to get twitchy, and you need to decide how much of that you're going to put up with – or if you even want to. And I see that look on your face. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, honestly. He's good when he tries to be. But when he screws up... good lord.”_

It'd taken me some time to recognize this for what it was, simple advice from someone who'd been there and wanted to prevent someone else from sustaining the same damage. I'd also gained some inkling of Clint's history by reading his file, but hearing about it from an exterior source did give me reason for pause. And as uncomfortable as it had made me, that additional caution was as useful a gift as anything.

The door creaked open again. Kate stood silhouetted in the doorway, and for a moment she looked puzzled as she peered down the stairs at us. “Come on, you two. It's your party.”

A prompting look from Clint and then, silently, _Do you need more time?_

I allowed myself a small smile, shook my head. _No. Thank you._


	28. “If it's a body, Barn, I'm gonna be pissed.” (Eo)

It was a good party – not much different than the resident potlucks that were usually held on the rooftop, and we meant it to be that way. And, like all good parties, it was called to an end before it could die a lame death. Or at least that's what I assume happened since I was shooed away at the first sign of sunset. I was given one last tipsy, teary hug from my mother, a slightly less tipsy but no less heartfelt embrace from Valerie, a smile from my father, and a disgusted eye roll from my brother before making good my exit.

Clint snorted when he saw me retrieve my key to the apartment from my bodice. “And here I thought it was a joke that women use their bras to hold stuff. Come to think of it, though, that explains a lot.” Then, ignoring my startled laughter, he scooped me up and carried me through the open door. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Silly, since we've lived together for most of a year. Humor me?”

Not like the events of that day had been anything but real, but the sudden impact of what it meant hit me as soon as my feet touched the floor. “Silly, yeah, but... we actually did this, didn't we.”

“We did.” A mock-wise, teasing nod. “I know. I was there. And there was this really pretty girl who told me that I was exactly what she needed. She's a good dancer, and a great kisser, and right now she's looking at me like I'm the biggest goof in the world. Am I close?” I turned pink and looked away, but couldn't hide a smile. “Good. Now, if I'm readin' your mood right, movies and beer and then maybe a little somethin' naughty later on?”

I reached up and hooked a finger in the knot of his tie, slowly pulling downward. “You're close, but not quite. Mind helping me out of this dress?”

“It'd be my pleasure.” Pause, then, “Hey, would you mind, uh, just giving me a minute?” I gave him a puzzled frown. This hesitance was unusual, and to be honest, I was kinda worried. “I've just got a little surprise in mind. Nothing big, I just need you to wait out here for a bit. S'that okay?”

I raised my eyebrows, still confused. “Oh-kay. I'll play along.”

“Thank you. Promise you'll like this.”

Then I was left alone in the living room. I sat down on the sofa to unlace my shoes, kicked them and my socks aside, and flopped back to wait. Surprises from Clint were usually sweet and heartfelt, though the execution seemed to be always just a little bit... off. And on tonight of all nights, well... Even though I knew it would likely be fruitless, I turned to Lucky for hints. “Any ideas, Luck?” The dog let out a muted _wurf_ in his sleep and rolled over onto his back. I sighed with a rueful smile and rubbed my bare foot along his soft belly. “S'ok. You're a good boy.”

Bacchus, as per his usual, deigned not to enlighten me of anything unusual that he may have observed from the other human member of the household. He seemed preoccupied with something in the breakfast nook, and I realized just before I heard the electronic tone that he was warning me of an impending phone call. I heard an inquiring sound from the direction of the bedroom. “Don't worry, hon, I'll get it,” I called back, and dashed to answer it before the caller hung up. “Good evening...”

“ _Hey there, darlin'. Is Clint around?”_

I had an inkling who it was, but that didn't stop me from hoping I was wrong. “Who is this?”

“ _Oh, that's right. We've never met.”_ A pause, a liquid slurp from what sounded like a bottle. _“I guess I'm your brother-in-law now. Congratulations.”_

I felt a sinking stone of dread in my gut. “Thank you, Barney,” I said, pitching my voice loud enough to be heard across the apartment. “Is there something I can help you with?”

That was enough to get Clint away from whatever he'd been working on. He was at my side in a handful of seconds, snatching the receiver out of my hand. “That's somethin' you never ask him,” he told me, then put the call on speaker so that I could hear both ends of the conversation. “What d'you want, Barney?”

“ _You sound kinda cranky, Clint. Am I interrupting something special?”_

“Gee, I wonder.” A frown, then, “How'd you know I'd gotten remarried?”

A low, gravelly chuckle. _“That's a mighty good question, considering my invite musta gotten lost in the mail. Damn shame, not askin' your own brother to come to your wedding.”_

“That's 'cause I don't know where you are, dick,” Clint snapped back. “ 'N if I did, you wouldn't be getting an invite – you'd be spitting teeth.”

“ _Now, now, take it easy. I was just gonna tell you that I got you a present.”_

“If it's a body, Barn, I'm gonna be pissed.”

“ _Of course not. Something that you and the missus might be able to use in your new, happy life, that's all. It's in a storage unit down by the pier, first month's rent paid.”_ At a prompting look from Clint, I scrounged up a notepad and a pen from the kitchen counter. Barney rattled off an address and I took it down on the paper. _“Oh, and answer to your question: the Internet.”_

“The Internet...?” Clint shrugged at me, and I shrugged back.

“ _That's how I knew you got hitched. Internet, same as everyone else. Instagram's a beautiful thing.”_ I could almost hear the smile on the other end of the line. _“You got yourself a rare one, Clint. Careful someone doesn't try to take 'er away.”_

The call went dead.

Clint glared down at the phone for a moment before putting it back on its charger. “Motherfutzing Barney and his special-ass timing.”

I glanced down at the paper, then back up at Clint. “Nuh-uh, mister. I know that look on your face – he's got you curious. Can I suggest that we wait until tomorrow, when we're both a little better rested and a little less distracted?” Clint opened his mouth to protest and I shut that down with a weary sigh. “He says it's nothing, but I don't believe that. Let's not give him any unnecessary advantages.”

A head tilt as he thought it over, then a quiet sigh and small smile. “There you go, sounding all sensible and whatnot. Knew there was a reason I keep you around.”

“I'd like to think that there are lots of reasons,” I replied. The notepad and pen went back on the kitchen counter. “So yes, whatever he's got planned can wait. Let's enjoy one of the last bits of guaranteed 'us' time that we'll get, okay?”

“And I did say that I'd help you get out of your dress...” Even though Clint waved me out of the kitchen area in front of him, I could've sworn I caught him sneaking one last look back toward where I'd dropped that notepad. Seeing him hesitate, I cleared my throat. “Right. Sorry. After you, madame.”

Was I a tad overeager? Maybe. But I wasn't much in the habit of wearing fancy underthings since the fancier they are, the more uncomfortable they tend to be – and today of all days certainly qualified as a day for fancy underthings. I couldn't wait for them to fulfill their intended purpose and then to be taken off, how I didn't care. It also didn't help that I could still feel the faint graze of teeth along the soft skin of my inner thigh where, a few hours ago, Clint had taken his own damn sweet time in peeling down the garter that I'd worn in grudging acquiescence to tradition. My mother looked like she'd been about ready to die from joy watching the scene, whereas my brother looked like he was desperately trying not to vomit. My father was pointedly looking elsewhere.

So I let myself be directed to the bedroom, told to wait for a minute outside the door, and then to be momentarily blindfolded with the silk tie that had been knotted around Clint's neck earlier that day. He tied it loosely enough over my eyes that I could see a little bit of light, and I let him think that the breath catching in my throat was from excitement over what was waiting for me – not from the sudden flash of dream-memory that crossed my mind. _Trust me._ I shivered.

The first thing I noticed once the bedroom door was shut behind me was a faint whiff of incense in the air. I'd given up the potpourri when I'd moved because of objections that it was 'distracting,' so to find something like it now was pleasing if unusual. But that was in turn pushed out of my mind by the light touch of fingers against my neck and then my ears as my jewelry was carefully removed and set aside. The zipper on my dress made only the faintest creak as it too was unfastened, and I needed no prompting to lift my arms so that the garment could be removed more easily.

Creak of floorboards under bare feet accompanied by a ghostly cousin of that appreciative whistle. “Damn. If I'd known this was waiting for me, I'd have told you to let that call go to the answering machine.” I was then guided to the edge of the bed and told to sit. “Makes what I've got going on in here kind of lame, now that I think about it.”

“I can't say that if I haven't been able to see it.” I rested my hand on the knot holding the tie over my eyes. “May I?”

“Might as well.”

I carefully unknotted the tie and looked around. Candles flickered in small clusters on my nightstand, on the dresser, and atop the vanity, casting a warm glow over a room that had been subtly transformed during my absence. Nothing big, just updates to the bed linens and drapes – and a free-standing mirror in the corner in which I now saw my awestruck reflection. “You did all of this today?”

“It was my idea. Might've gotten some help, too. I know you're carrying a lot in your head, and least I can do is give you a safe, comfy space to relax.” Off came the dress shirt, tossed over the chair in front of the vanity and followed in short order by the slacks. “Now, we both know what we're supposed to be doing tonight, but I also know you're not completely – I dunno, feelin' it. You're acting like that's what you want because you're thinking that's what I want, but...” Shrug, the soft flickering light illuminating the gesture in interesting ways. “I don't. Not if you're not a hundred percent up for it.”

“Are you... are you sure about that?”

“Dead sure.” A pause, a glance around the room. “But since we've got this nice setup going on, why don't you lie down and let me dig some of that stress out of your back? I'm not as good at it as you are, but I can do my best.”

I wasn't about to turn down that kind of offer. It was all I could do not to purr as I lay there on my stomach, feeling those fingers trace a map of the scars and marks across my shoulders and back before Clint put his full weight in and began to dig as promised. Those fancy underthings did come off, if only to allow unimpeded access to the knots and bands that my anxiety had twisted throughout my torso. It wasn't long before I drifted off, content and at peace.


	29. Bone Marrow to Pick (Clint)

Things didn't play out the way I'd expected that night, but in the end it was worth it to see Eo dozing off without a care in the world. I mean, I'd been nervous standing out there on that rooftop with all of those people looking at me. My second shot at this whole permanent togetherness thing, wondering if this time I'd have what it took to make it stick, all for a woman who I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't almost landed in her lap. I'm not much of a believer in fate, but even now I have to look back and wonder at the exact mix of events that brought me to stand there in front of that crowd and promise to her that I'd stick around. Do I regret it? Not at all, and I'm not just sayin' that to make myself look good.

But all of my nervousness got pushed to the back of my mind when I saw that brief moment of hesitation when Eo stepped out onto the roof just behind her dad. There was a flicker of suspicion that crossed her face, this tightness around the eyes that she couldn't hide, and even Lucky saying hello couldn't completely chase it away. I knew why. She hadn't told me everything that had happened to her in the four days that she'd been gone and I hadn't forced her to, but whatever she'd gone through had done a number on her peace of mind. I couldn't get the image out of my head of the way that she'd tried to hide on that cot when I'd come in to bust her out, the way she'd curled up like a frightened animal. I could still see traces of that animal skittishness in the way that she looked for enemies as she walked, and I had to fight hard to ignore for a while how mad that made me.

And then those gloves. Those goddamn gloves! I knew the reason why she was wearing them, at least the theory behind it – if she couldn't touch anyone, she couldn't accidentally hurt them – but that just pissed me off more. _Hell with 'em,_ I thought, and took them off. I could hear a few people making disapproving sounds in the audience. Nobody said anything aloud, though Bobbi's subtle head-shake said it all. _Clint, you dummy._ But this wouldn't be the first time I was doin' something stupid for someone I cared about – and what was she gonna do, tell the team to suspend me for another six months?

You'd have to look pretty close to see the marks on Eo's back from the shattered glass on the day we met, but I know the location of every one. Not like I need it, but it's a personal reminder to me that every act of mine has consequences and that there are certain things that can't be covered up no matter how hard you try. So you can bet your butt that I put my weight into that backrub. If I couldn't erase the scars, I'd do my best to lessen the weight she carried there because of me. After tucking her under the covers, I blew out the candles and slid in next to her, listening to her quiet breathing in the dark.

The sun hadn't quite finished rising when I woke up to the gentle sensation of fingers tracing the line of my jaw. Sometime during the night Eo had draped herself over me like a blanket, her soft curves molding to my body in ways that suggested things we could be doing if we weren't asleep. It's one of my favorite ways to wake up, 'specially on mornings like that one when light touches mixed with half-awake, sleepy kisses and quiet murmurs and gasps of pleasure. There wasn't any rush this morning, either, which made the wake-up call doubly nice. We lay there side by side for a while afterward. “Mornin', missus,” I mumbled. “Looks like you slept well.”

“I did,” she said, a catlike smile spreading across her face. “How 'bout you?”

“Never better.” The sun was up fully now, filtering through the new drapes in a muted golden light. It made her look like something out of a vintage photo, and as I looked at her it hit me again: _This is my wife. Holy crow, this is my wife._ “You want to sleep in for a while, or did you want to get something to eat?”

“I'm fine with staying here for a little bit. Loving the new sheets.”

It was sometime after ten when we finally got up. We didn't sleep in the time between. Taking a shower afterward was just as distracting and just as nice. So it was noon or so when we made it to the kitchen and had a very late breakfast. I caught sight of the notepad that Eo'd tossed on the counter the night before. “So I know we were supposed to head out to the farm today, but do you mind if we make a quick side trip?”

Eo grinned. “I knew you were gonna say that. Sure, we can.”

 

We took Eo's car to the storage place. Even though my car's a nice heavy chunk of American-made metal and has taken its fair share of knocks, I remembered bits and pieces of what Tony'd done to Frodo and it was a mutual agreement that Eo's car'd probably be safer. I brought my usual rig in case of trouble, but finding that trouble was up to the missus and her fancy field gear. She parked the car a safe distance away from the unit we'd been told to go to, then powered up the black box strapped to her forearm. I popped open the glovebox and handed her a reinforced case. Eo got out a pair of sunglasses from the case and slipped them onto her face, tapping the stem with a gloved finger to sync them up with the black box. “Standard scans good enough?” she asked. “Bio, IR, structural...”

“Should be.”

I dunno what I was expecting, but I was disappointed for sure when after a little while Eo declared the storage unit and its surroundings free of any nasty surprises. That didn't stop us from approaching it like it was rigged to blow, though, and I found myself holding my breath as she keyed in the access code. Bolts slid free and I rolled up the door. “What the futz...”

“Is that a... rowboat?” Eo pulled a flashlight from her belt and clicked it on, shining the beam around the dark interior of the storage unit. “Why the hell would your brother give you a rowboat?”

“Because I'm great at boats,” I muttered. “What a smartass.”

I let her give the boat a once-over with her scanners before I went any closer, just in case my brother'd tried anything sneaky that she hadn't caught on her first sweep. “It's clear.”

I made a slow circle around the rowboat, which my brother had oh-so-nicely put on a trailer for easy transportation. Nothing snazzy, a metal hull with room for one or two people and an ice chest, and a name painted on the aft outside panel... “Bone Marrow to Pick.” I slapped my hand over my eyes and rubbed for a few seconds. “Motherfutzing Barney. You're never gonna let that go, are you?”

Eo hopped up onto the trailer to get a better look into the rowboat. “There's something in here. Looks like... duffel bags.” She leaned over and snagged one, pulled the zipper open, and cussed under her breath. “Uh, Clint?”

“S'not a body, is it? M' gonna find him and kick his ass if it's a body.”

“No, it's not.” She hooked another one, opened it. “It's cash. A lot of it.”

I hopped up to take a look too. Sure enough – two duffel bags, each stuffed with wads of Benjamins. Nothing close to the amount that he'd stolen from me, but enough that we could live comfortable for a while if we used it smart. I wanted to be grateful, and part of me was, but the rest of me wondered what price tag came along with this gift.

Eo echoed my thoughts with an out-loud question: “What do you think we should do with all of this?”

“One thing's for sure – we're not gonna leave it here. We're not taking it back to the apartment, either.” I thought for a little bit, then put on my best reassuring smile. “I'll figure something out. You don't wanna know where this money's been or where it came from, though you've probably got some ideas.” Eo shot me this disgusted look which I shrugged off. “You said so yourself, darlin' – you know my history. You knew what you signed on for a year and some ago when we got into each other's business... so just let me take care of this, okay? I'll make sure it's safe and that we can get to it if and when we need it.”

Eo mirrored my facepalm gesture of earlier and shook her head. “Fine. I won't ask. Just... nothing too risky, all right?”

“You know me.” I shut the bags and tossed them both over the side to the concrete floor, then dropped back down after them. Even though I was pretty sure she wouldn't need the help, I gave Eo a hand anyway and had to hide a grimace at the slick texture of her tactical gloves. They were designed to be durable without limiting her movement or ability to operate delicate equipment and, more importantly, they blocked the skin-to-skin contact that she needed for her gifts to work. That said, it wasn't so much the feel of the material but knowing its purpose and seeing the effect that it had on her that gave me the willies. “You've got a trailer hitch on your car, right?”


End file.
